Cybersecurity is often associated with malicious attacks from the outside that gain access to your system because of inside vulnerabilities. And while this is an ongoing issue that is becoming more common, you also have to take into account the destructive weather patterns that have wreaked havoc around the country during natural disasters.
Take the recent hurricanes that swept through Texas and Florida – over $200 billion in damages. If companies hadn’t begun their planning for disaster recovery, they are now – but only if they survived. It’s estimated that over 90 percent of businesses that experience a large-scale disaster do not recover from it over a five-year period. And because we’ve digitized most of our business information, having a disaster recovery plan in motion isn’t optional.
The best strategies are those that put a focus on a fast recovery – getting back online quickly after the disaster strikes. The goal is to make sure a disaster has as little impact as possible on the bottom line.
The Multisite Environment
One way of approaching your disaster recovery strategy when your primary site has been compromised and will take months to bring back is to use a secondary site in the interim. This site must be functional in a very short amount of time, often referred to as the recovery time objective. In the best-case scenario, this is a window of between six and 12 hours.
Online retailers and healthcare providers don’t have that much time, which means there is no real gap short enough to feasibly have no impact on the bottom line, or in the case of healthcare, the well being of the patient. The disaster recovery plan needs to be far more robust.
Smart Approach to Disaster Recovery Plans
Follow these steps to get a good start on your plan:
· Know where your risks lie, and what risks are acceptable and unacceptable.
· Assess your infrastructure and determine what is critical for keeping daily processes up and running.
· Determine how much money you can lose before the situation becomes critical.
· Develop a budget that is focused on saving the organization.
· Utilize a third party to ensure your plan works, and do this every six months while making changes where necessary.
At Infinium Communications, we’re dedicated to preparing our clients for anything. Regardless of the type of situation that threatens your operations, we’re ready to handle your communication needs. Contact us today and let’s talk about how to be prepared.