Disaster Recovery Planning in the Next Decade: A CISO’s Take

Last updated Oct 23, 2023  |  Published on Jul 24, 2023
by Haley Glover

Disaster Recovery Plans (DRPs) play a pivotal role in ensuring the resilience and success of organizations. These plans help to anticipate and mitigate risk but require necessary engagement from stakeholders for efficiency. By choosing CISO as a Service for your organization, you can augment your organization’s initiatives and establish robust security protocols to enrich your disaster recovery planning. In this blog, we will discuss how Disaster Recovery Plans are evolving, highlight the importance of forced failovers, and outline the best practices to protect your business. 

Consistently Forcing Failover & Rehearse Response

Forcing system failovers in your company’s infrastructure is growing to be a recommended business practice as it ensures your organization has a robust and reliable backup system in place. This ensures that if a primary system fails, the backup system will detect the failure and take over seamlessly. Testing these failovers allows your organization to identify the most critical functions of your business and how much downtime each function can tolerate. This helps to predict the size and scope of the losses your business would incur if certain business processes were disrupted. 

These risk assessments need to be rehearsed by your company employees as well, so they learn to respond accordingly. By simulating and rehearsing failover scenarios, employees can familiarize themselves with the necessary protocols and procedures, ensuring a swift and coordinated response during an actual incident. This proactive approach allows companies to minimize the impact of failovers, maintain customer satisfaction, and mitigate potential financial losses.  

Migration Toward Cloud-Based Solutions

Companies have been migrating toward cloud-based solutions since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Previously, accessing necessary resources required being connected to a VPN or being physically present in the office, often preventing businesses from doing business during disruptions. The migration towards cloud-based solutions has enabled enormous flexibility for public-sector organizations. This shift empowers businesses to continue their operations seamlessly and securely.  

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With some cloud solutions offering automated backups, this increases the possibility of instantaneous restoration, often without your clients noticing. To leverage instantaneous restoration, your organization can utilize warm or hot sites within the cloud. However, the majority of companies are not using these strategies due to the multitude of equipment and backups which must first be evaluated. 

Cloud-based solutions allow for a much faster recovery time, ensuring little to no working hours are lost. As cloud solutions continue to decrease in cost, they are being implemented company-wide, extending their benefits beyond necessary areas. Larger organizations that utilize AI and Machine Learning often opt for a hybrid approach of combining both cloud and on-site storage, or exclusively rely on on-site storage to reinforce crucial security measures. The migration towards cloud-based solutions revolutionizes disaster recovery by enhancing system resilience in the face of disruptions. 

Risk Management with CISO on Demand

Risk management is an integral component for enhancing your organization’s security posture. The threat landscape is constantly evolving, and organizations face endless risks, especially cybersecurity threats. Disaster Recovery Planning remains essential for risk management but is only effective with continuous development and monitoring. Partnering with a virtual CISO can help public-sector organizations reduce costs and plan a robust DRP to safeguard their operations.  

CISO as a Service brings specialized cybersecurity expertise to organizations. When the virtual CISO is brought in to observe the DRP, they give an unbiased look into your organization’s capacity to recover from a business-disrupting event. The virtual CISO complements the salaried executive team by working alongside them on company initiatives, providing additional resources and expertise.

Disaster Recovery Planning is Essential for Public-Sector Organizations

As businesses continue to navigate a dynamic and ever-changing landscape, DRPs remain critical tools for every public-sector organization. These plans aim to maintain resilience and thrive in the face of criminal activity, natural disasters, and any unanticipated tech disruption. The migration towards cloud-based solutions offers numerous advantages, including enhanced data integrity and faster recovery times.  

By collaborating with CISO as a Service, your organization can fortify its security posture and allocate more resources towards company initiatives, ensuring business operations remain secure and uninterrupted. By embracing these strategies, your organization can strengthen its resilience, protect its assets, and prepare for the unexpected, whenever it arrives.