5 Business Continuity Mistakes to Avoid

5 Business Continuity Mistakes to Avoid

In today’s technology-oriented marketplace, it’s likely that data is your single most valuable asset. A major area of business continuity planning is protecting that data and making sure that you have a solution to fall back on should the worst happen. Whether it’s a natural disaster, a cybersecurity breach or plain old human error, the success of your organization depends on its ability to mitigate problems before they cause irreparable damage.

  1. Not Including Your Whole Team

  2. Business continuity planning isn’t something that only management needs to be aware of. If things go wrong, you need to be able to count on your employees to know what to do and take the appropriate action. It’s usually the human element that’s the weakest link when it comes to data breaches, so you’ll need to train your team to ensure they’re aware of the risks. Employees also need to know what to do or whom to call if a workstation or server gets infected by malicious software.

  3. Not Addressing the Risks

  4. There are plenty of cybersecurity threats that make headlines around the world, but it’s not just those that you need to worry about. The risks facing businesses are extremely variable and depend on many factors, such as the extent that your business relies on technology to the maximum possible attack surface as determined by your infrastructure. Cybercriminals often exploit businesses in ways that they don’t expect, so starting with a professional audit of your systems is a must.

  5. Not Updating Your Plan

  6. A business continuity plan is only as effective as it is current. If your plan is not regularly updated to reflect new systems and the new risks they present, then it will fall short when it comes to successful implementation. Plans need to be audited, maintained and reviewed every time you make any significant changes to your infrastructure. You’ll also need to test your plans on a regular basis, preferably by having an external team search your network for potential vulnerabilities.

  7. Not Taking Backup Seriously

  8. Attacks like this year’s WannaCry and Petya are troublesome at best, but they shouldn’t spell irreparable disaster for your business. There’s no such thing as a completely secure system, so you’ll always want to have a data backup strategy in place to fall back on if the worst happens. Regularly backing up data, both on-premises and remotely over the cloud is one of the core elements of any business continuity plan. After all, sometimes it takes only a single error to bring disaster.

  9. Not Updating Your Systems

  10. Business continuity also means taking preventive measures. Security breaches often occur due to vulnerabilities in deprecated operating systems and other software, as illustrated by the fact that the WannaCry ransomware only infected machines running Windows XP. Aside from updating the plan itself, you’ll also want to be certain your systems are up to date at all times.

One of the most effective ways to implement a strong business continuity plan is to implement a disaster recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS) plan. This way, you’ll have an off-site solution for backing up and restoring your data and systems within a given time limit. If you’re interested in our cloud-based disaster-recovery solutions, visit www.intelligis.com today.