Technology is the primary driver of most businesses today. It's used in everything from managing employees, to financial planning, and ordering processing.

The more technology businesses invest in, the more potential attack surfaces they have that can be exploited. Without the right continuity plans in place, the disruptions caused by these attacks can bring operations to a standstill and cause irreparable damage to an organization.

It's essential to take the time now to ensure your business has the right tools, processes, and recovery initiatives in place to weather any type of IT disaster that comes up. Here are some effective strategies you can follow to achieve this:

Outline Your Recovery Objectives

One of the most fundamental things to consider before an IT disaster takes place is what your primary recovery objectives are. This ultimately should come down to understanding two very important business metrics — your Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO).

• RTO should be viewed as the deadline you have to meet certain recovery objectives. This essentially identifies the longest amount of time systems or applications can be down before it leads to critical disruptions.
• RPO represents acceptable levels of data loss. After exceeding this metric, there will be large financial implications that take place.

Knowing each of these metrics is critical for keeping any recovery initiatives you have in place prioritized in the right areas.

Have a Solid Backup Strategy

Getting through an unplanned IT disruption is all about having the right redundancy controls in place ahead of time. This makes sure that a single point of failure doesn't lead to larger, more catastrophic consequences.

One of the most important redundancy controls you can implement is regular data backups. A good starting point for this process is to follow the 3-2-1 rule:

• Always keep three copies of your backups
• Maintain at least two different backup formats
• Keep one of your backups stored off-site and outside your connected network

This strategy ensures that you have multiple ways to access safe, working backups of your systems. Even if one or more backups become compromised during an attack, you'll still have a clean one to use during recovery efforts if needed.

Build an Effective Communication Strategy

Whenever an IT crisis hits, there can be a lot of internal chaos in its wake. Because of this, you should have an effective communication strategy already ironed out and given to applicable stakeholders.

This strategy should encompass all of the critical parties involved in recovery processes, whether they're part of the business or external partners. The strategy should clearly outline how employees are alerted to a major IT issue and any alternative workflows necessary to keep core operations running.

If external communication to customers is required, it's important to have pre-drafted PR templates accessible to ensure that the messaging and tone of the information are in alignment with any business or industry requirements. Many states and compliance frameworks require notifications to affected parties when data is exposed, so make sure you're aware of the requirements that apply to your business.

Regularly Test Your Disaster Recovery Plans

A disaster recovery plan that just sits in a binder is useless. It needs to be a living document that your team regularly reviews and practices.

Running regular drills and recovery simulations can help you identify any major gaps in your plan, as well as locate any bottlenecks that could slow down progress in a real emergency. You can also improve this effort by hiring outside penetration testers who can help to uncover deeper-rooted vulnerabilities that could be exploited. This information can ensure that the recovery plans are thorough enough to cover all potential areas of disruption while also helping the business to improve its security posture.

The more effort you put into disaster recovery planning, the better muscle memory your teams will have when carrying out their assigned tasks.

Establish Clear Governance Policies

In the midst of an emergency, understanding both the technical and legal requirements associated with recovery efforts is critical.

Having clearly documented governance policies is essential here. It can provide your teams with the step-by-step guidance they need to not only get critical systems up and running but also ensure they follow important compliance requirements applicable to the business.

Using pre-established security frameworks like NIST or ISO is one way to ensure that these policies and procedures align with best practices, minimizing any exposure the business might have to data compromise and the legal consequences that can come with it.

Help to Make Your Business More Resilient

IT disruptions can happen at any time and for all types of reasons. However, this doesn't mean your business can't be adequately prepared for them. 

By making disaster recovery a core part of your business continuity strategy, you can build more resilient operations moving forward.