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Departmental disaster recovery planning

Disaster recovery planning involves the process, policies, and procedures that enable delivery of critical technical services to Indiana University in the event of natural or man-made disaster.

Disaster recovery (DR) is an integral part of the overall business continuity program . While business continuity is concerned with continuation of the business of the university, disaster recovery or information technology business continuity is focused on the continued operation and function of technology to support those business functions.

A disaster recovery program ensures the technology that supports the business of the university will continue to function after an event occurs. Which departments and offices should think about DR? Any that use any form of IT, including email, to conduct business.

The purpose of this document is to help departments form a disaster recovery plan. Many services hosted by university departments are key in conducting daily university business; as such, plans for these services to provide continued functionality in the event of disaster is paramount.

Developing your disaster recovery plan

We have provided a strategy template to use in developing your departmental disaster recovery plan. Prioritizing your services from most critical to least critical is key to developing a useful plan, which should c learly define the steps and equipment needed to bring these critical services back online.

These steps should include who to contact, where backup data is stored and where new equipment should be sourced from if replacement is required.

Storing your disaster recovery plan

Indiana University’s IU Ready service should be used for storing your DR plan and business continuity plan (BCP).

The IU Ready service, found on One.IU , helps university administration understand the resources and dependencies needed to help your department recover from a major disaster, and provides a centralized location for storing these documents in a secure off-site location.

Auditing your disaster recovery plan

Regulary auditing your DR plan to reflect changes in your services is important to ensure that those tasked with bringing these services back up are working with the correct information. Changes to services such as IP address, VLAN, Administrator access and firewall settings should be updated as soon as these changes are made to the system.

It is also important to audit access to the IU Ready plan and its documents to reflect changes in staffing, contact information, and administrative access. Outdated information in your DR plan could result in additional down time.

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How to Create a Cybersecurity Disaster Recovery Plan

Any organization can be the victim of a cyberattack , and these attacks are growing more sophisticated and damaging. A successful ransomware attack can cause permanent data loss and degrade a company’s ability to do business for days or weeks. A successful data breach carries the risks of reputational damage, regulatory penalties, and the loss of competitive advantage as well as the costs of recovery.

Responding quickly and correctly is essential to minimizing the cost and impact of a cybersecurity incident. By having a cybersecurity disaster recovery plan in place, an organization has taken steps to prepare to maintain operations during the incident and restore business as usual as quickly as possible.

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What are the Goals of a Cybersecurity Disaster Recovery Plan?

A cybersecurity disaster recovery plan should provide an organization with a roadmap for managing a disruptive cybersecurity incident such as a data breach or ransomware attack . Some goals of a cybersecurity disaster recovery plan include:

  • Maintain Business Continuity: Full recovery from a cybersecurity incident can be time-consuming, and the interruption in operations incurs significant costs for the business. A cybersecurity disaster recovery plan should include strategies for maintaining operations throughout the incident and recovery process.
  • Protect Sensitive Data: A breach of sensitive customer or corporate data can dramatically exacerbate the cost and impact of a security incident. Ensuring that data is secure throughout the incident is essential to protecting the business and its customers.
  • Minimize Impacts and Losses: Cybersecurity incidents can carry costs in the millions, and, if left unmanaged, can drive companies out of business. Disaster recovery plans should include strategies for minimizing costs and losses by maintaining operations, protecting critical assets, and containing the incident.
  • Communicate with Stakeholders: Cybersecurity incidents require communication with stakeholders both inside and outside the organization, such as the incident response team, leadership, regulators, and customers. Defining clear lines of communication is essential to effective incident management and meeting legal and regulatory deadlines.
  • Restore Normal Operations: The end goal of any disaster recovery plan is a return to business as usual. Cybersecurity disaster recovery plans should describe the process of moving from business continuity to full recovery.
  • Review and Improve: Throughout the disaster recovery process, team members should document their activities and record information about the incident and how it was managed. These logs and metrics can be used retrospectively to improve incident prevention and streamline recovery procedures in the future.

How to Develop a Cybersecurity Disaster Recovery Plan

A cybersecurity disaster recovery plan should be targeted at maintaining business continuity and restoring normal operations in the wake of a cybersecurity incident. Some key steps toward the development of a cybersecurity disaster recovery plan include:

  • Choose a Plan Owner: Finding out during a security incident that the plan doesn’t exist, is out of date, or is lost is not ideal for business continuity. A cybersecurity disaster recovery plan should be owned by the person who will lead the recovery process and who will be accessible when needed.
  • Identify Critical Assets: Business continuity is about ensuring that the assets that are needed to maintain operations are online and available. Identifying critical assets is essential to developing plans to protect and restore them.
  • Determine Risks: Different critical assets may face different risks, ranging from ransomware attacks to power outages. Identifying and documenting these risks enables a business to develop plans for addressing and minimizing them.
  • Develop Strategies: A disaster recovery strategy should include plans for backing up critical assets, protecting them against risks, responding to an incident, and communicating with key stakeholders. With a clear understanding of what needs protecting and what can go wrong, a team can develop strategies for managing these risks.
  • Practice and Test: Practice makes perfect. Running through the disaster recovery with all key stakeholders and participants before an incident occurs can help to ensure that everyone knows what they are supposed to do and to identify and correct any gaps or errors in the plan.

How Check Point Can Support Disaster Recovery Planning

Cybersecurity incident management includes both minimizing the probability that an incident occurs and restoring operations in the wake of a disruption. Check Point’s free Security Checkup is a great starting place for incident prevention because it can help identify the security vulnerabilities in your organization’s system that are most likely to result in a cyberattack.

If your organization is currently suffering a cyberattack, Check Point can help. ThreatCloud AI Incident Response offers 24/7 support. For assistance, email [email protected] or call our hotline .

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The recent pandemic has shown that disruptions in daily business can happen quickly and without warning. Whether as a result of a  pandemic , natural disaster or network disruptions due to cybersecurity incidents, you need to ensure that your business can keep running through operational difficulties.  One way to help your business keep going is by developing a disaster recovery plan.

What is a disaster recovery plan?

A disaster recovery plan, also known as a DRP, is a formal business document that outlines  in detail the actions and assets needed in the event of a disaster. It includes the required processes, assets, employees and services.

DRPs have become a staple in modern business. They can play a vital role in keeping a business going long term when they are designed and used correctly. Every business is unique, but there is a basic template. Here are the critical elements of a disaster recovery plan template and why they’re essential.

Disaster Recovery Plan Template

1. asset management.

At the beginning of drafting your DRP, you need to take stock and document all of your critical hardware and software for the business. This includes all layers of your information technology (IT) systems, including hardware, software, network components and relevant business databases. Even outside of drafting a DRP, auditing and documenting all business assets is a best business practice that can lead to improved scalability and added discernibility into total operating expenses.

2. Identifying RTO and RPO

When preparing for and deploying your disaster recovery initiative, it’s vital to establish your business’s Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO). 

The RTO is a pre-established deadline for a business to recover their systems after an outage. You could measure this in hours, days or even weeks.

The RPO relates to a business’ loss tolerance. This is measured by the amount of data that can be lost and is deemed acceptable before causing impactful damage to the group.

Both RTO and RPO are important metrics to understand as various sections of your disaster recovery plan use them for reference. RTOs and RPOs are also subject to change regularly, so it’s important that a business audits these targets often and updates their DRPs as needed.

3. Collect and Audit SLA Agreements

Over time, many businesses will begin working with third-party service providers. When developing your disaster recovery plan, identifying and recording all service level agreements (SLA) between service providers and suppliers is essential. In the event of a network outage, it’s crucial to have a thorough idea of who is responsible for what when recovering systems and restoring backups. This is true whether it is an on-premise or cloud-based outage. Making an SLA is also an important step when ensuring your service providers can meet your business’s RTO and RPO standards.

4. Choose and Establish a Disaster Recovery Site

Next, businesses will want to find a disaster recovery site to manage company backups and support infrastructure. Disaster recovery sites are typically built in remote locations and are used to help restore IT infrastructure and other mission-critical operations during a long-term outage . There are various types of disaster recovery sites to choose from, so find one that supports your own business priorities.

5. Establish Personnel Roles

When establishing a disaster recovery plan within your organization, you should identify each person’s role within the group or outside for disaster recovery processes. To do this, designate and qualify a person or a team to declare certain cases in an emergency as needed. This will be a critical first step when starting the DRP process and streamlining communication levels once recovery efforts are underway. Clearly define role assignments for each person, and train them on their involvement with the DRP process.

6. Build a Communication Plan

Creating a thorough communication plan prior to disaster recovery efforts is vital to the return of normal work. This starts by carefully naming and recording all departments and employees involved. Next, define procedures on how to contact each of the employees and their departments. You should include vendors, partners and customers.

7. Outline Disaster Recovery Protocols

Lastly, outline all of your disaster recovery protocols. These will reference other sections of the DRP. They allow you to list step-by-step instructions for resuming work according to the RTO and RPO. 

8. Perform Regular Testing

Don’t forget to audit and test your DRP to make sure it is effective. For many growing businesses, infrastructure needs and service agreements change. Therefore, it’s vital to ensure your DRP remains factual and efficient over time. A regular routine of audits and DRP tests will ensure that your disaster recovery efforts keep working as the business grows and changes.  

Developing a disaster recovery plan now is a significant step forward to ensuring your business’s long-term viability. Take a close look at your own business needs before following any specific disaster recovery plan template. In many cases, disaster recovery service experts can help consult during the DRP building process. By investing the time now to build a thorough and regularly-updated disaster recovery plan, you’ll ensure your business can weather whatever storm comes your way. 

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disaster recovery plan (DRP)

DRP show sources hide sources CNSSI 4009-2015 , NIST SP 800-12 Rev. 1 , NIST SP 800-82 Rev. 2

   A written plan for processing critical applications in the event of a major hardware or software failure or destruction of facilities. Sources: NIST SP 800-82 Rev. 2 under Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP)    2. A written plan for recovering one or more information systems at an alternate facility in response to a major hardware or software failure or destruction of facilities. Sources: CNSSI 4009-2015 from NIST SP 800-34 Rev. 1    1. Management policy and procedures used to guide an enterprise response to a major loss of enterprise capability or damage to its facilities. The DRP is the second plan needed by the enterprise risk managers and is used when the enterprise must recover (at its original facilities) from a loss of capability over a period of hours or days. See continuity of operations plan (COOP) and contingency plan. Sources: CNSSI 4009-2015    A written plan for recovering one or more information systems at an alternate facility in response to a major hardware or software failure or destruction of facilities. Sources: NIST SP 800-34 Rev. 1 under Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP)

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See NISTIR 7298 Rev. 3 for additional details.

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Disaster Recovery Consultation, Documentation, & Testing

Description.

The disaster recovery consultation, documentation and testing service includes system contingency planning and testing services in accordance with National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 800-37 and 800-53. Services include the delivery of a customized contingency plan tailored for the unique needs and structure of a system. Deliverables include Information System Contingency Plan (ISCP), ISCP Exercise Plan, and After-Action Report.

This service is offered through our federal service partner, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). For more detailed information about this service, please visit the DOT's Enterprise Services Center (ESC) website. 

For inquiries about ESC offered services or if interested in purchasing services, please contact us at: [email protected]

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Disaster Recovery Plan Templates

By Andy Marker | November 26, 2018

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In this article, you’ll find the most useful disaster plan templates, available for download in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF formats. Customize the free templates to fit your business needs so you can maintain productivity and operations in the event of a disaster.

Disaster Recovery Plan Template

Disaster Recovery Plan Template

Use this template to document and track all critical operations, personnel contact information, and key procedures to perform in the event of a disaster or business disruption. Use the designated space to record critical information, like the backup process, recovery sites, and restoration steps. This template is available for download in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and PDF formats.

Download Disaster Recovery Plan Template

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Disaster Risk Reduction Management Plan Template

Disaster Risk reduction Management Plan Template

Use this template to record the most essential information your organization needs in order to effectively gauge risks. Within the disaster risk reduction management plan, you’ll find space to detail risk severity and likelihood and outline it on a visual chart. Use this template to stay on top of risks and detail how to handle any disaster or disruption, no matter the severity.

Download Disaster Risk Reduction Management Plan Template

Excel  | PDF  | Smartsheet

IT Disaster Plan Template

IT Disaster Recovery Plan Template

This template outlines the specific steps for continuing business operations and recovery in the IT field. Space is included to document IT objectives, key IT personnel and all necessary contact information, recovery plan overview, and emergency response teams. Available in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and PDF formats, this template serves as a blueprint for recovering from all IT disruptions. .

Download IT Disaster Plan Template

Word | PowerPoint | PDF

Data Disaster Recovery Plan Template

Data Disaster Recovery Plan Template

Use this template to document the process for recovering key data after a disaster or disruption in business operations. With space to list a statement of intent, emergency response processes, financial and legal information, and recovery plan practice and implementation, this template will aid in the restoration of all critical business data.

Download Data Disaster Recovery Plan Template

Disaster Recovery Communication Plan Template

Disaster Recovery Communication Plan Template

This disaster recovery communication plan template will help you identify the core communications across team members in the event of a disaster. This template provides space to assign responsibilities, identify stakeholders, and set up a proper response plan. This template is available in both Microsoft Word and PDF formats.

Download Disaster Recovery Communication Plan Template

Payroll Disaster Recovery Plan Template

Payroll Disaster Recovery Plan Template

Plan, track, and manage a disaster that affects the payroll process of your organization and hinders normal HR operations. You can use this template to detail key contact information, disaster recovery teams, and emergency alert and activation measures dealing with a disaster that affects typical payroll operations. This customizable template is available in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and PDF formats.

Download Payroll Disaster Recovery Plan Template

School Disaster Management Plan Template

School Disaster Management Plan Template

In the event of a disaster or emergency situation at a school, use this template to plan the exact details involved in the response, mitigation, and recovery plan. Manage all risks that could potentially plague schools, such as site security or power outages. With space to document a full risk assessment, a preparedness plan, and response actions, your school will be fully prepared.

Download School Disaster Management Plan Template

Disaster Management Plan Template

Disaster Management Plan Template

Use this comprehensive template to detail the response and management plan of your organization after a disaster strikes. With space to include an outline of your overall disaster recovery plan, key contact information, disaster recovery procedures, and alternate recovery sites, this template enables you to manage any catastrophe that may affect your organization.

Download Disaster Management Plan Template

Simple Disaster Recovery Plan for Small Businesses

Simple Disaster Recovery Plan for Small Business Template

This template offers a simple yet comprehensive recovery plan for small businesses when a disaster or emergency situation interrupts typical activity. You’ll find space to outline everything from recovery plans to backup procedures, and even disaster site rebuilding and relocation plans. This template is available for download in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and PDF formats.

Download Simple Disaster Recovery Plan for Small Businesses

SaaS Disaster Recovery Plan Template

SAAS Disaster Recovery Plan Template

This template is specifically designed for SaaS organizations to plan, manage, and assess the damage after a disaster occurs. Outline key objectives, provide a detailed overview, and assign responsibilities across emergency and disaster response teams with this comprehensive template available in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and PDF formats.

Download SaaS Disaster Recovery Plan Template

Disaster Drill Evaluation Template

Disaster Drill Evaluation Template

Use this template during and after a disaster drill to evaluate the effectiveness of your organization’s plan. Record the type of disaster the drill is for, drill initiation and complete times, emergency response team accuracy, and lessons learned. Download and customize for your business needs, available in both Microsoft Word and PDF formats.

Download Disaster Drill Evaluation Template

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Disaster Call Tree Template

Disaster Call Tree Template

Streamline the process of phone communication when an emergency occurs. Use this template to detail the person responsible for starting the call tree, as well as all of the people who then contact others to effectively and quickly alert all team members of the disaster.

Download Disaster Call Tree Template

Excel | Word | PowerPoint | PDF

Manufacturing Disaster Recovery Plan Template

Manufacturing Disaster Recovery Plan Template

In the event of a disaster that affects the normal manufacturing operations, use this template to outline the critical details needed to restore manufacturing. With space to document critical personnel responsibilities, contingency operations, backup locations, and more, manufacturing teams can continue or relocate operations to maintain normal functions as quickly as possible.

Download Manufacturing Disaster Recovery Plan Template

Disaster Recovery Runbook

Disaster Recovery Runbook Template

Use this template to document the steps to recovery from a disaster. You can apply this template across a multitude of business functions or teams. Easily document key details like communication strategies, disaster declaration and response procedures, infrastructure overviews, and restoration details in one place. This template is available for download in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and PDF formats.

Download Disaster Recovery Runbook

Application Disaster Recovery Plan Template

Application Disaster Recovery Response Template

Use this template to document specific steps for recovering from a disaster or business disruption. There is space to include policy statements, contact information, and disaster and emergency response teams and procedures. This template is available to customize and download in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and PDF formats.

Download Application Disaster Recovery Plan Template

Law Firm Disaster Recovery Plan Template

Law Firm Disaster Recovery Plan Template

This template offers specific recovery procedures and processes associated specifically with law firms. Document disaster response steps, personnel losses, new employee training, and office space information to effectively tackle the aftermath of a disaster that plagues a law company. This template is available for download in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and PDF formats.

Download Law Firm Disaster Recovery Plan Template

What Is a Disaster Recovery Plan?

A disaster recovery plan (DRP) is a step-by-step procedure that outlines how a business or organization will recover from disrupted systems, operations, processes, or networks. The aim of a DRP is to identify critical systems or procedures, prioritize recovery time objectives (RTOs), document key personnel contact information, and outline any necessary policies to follow in the event of a disaster.

What Is the Purpose of a Disaster Recovery Plan?

A DRP is an essential document for any business or organization, as it ensures that all normal business processes, infrastructure, and applications continue to operate when a major disaster strikes. Usually, a disaster recovery plan is included as part of the overall business impact analysis .

Additionally, the plan provides details for responding to unplanned incidents, which can include cyber attacks, environmental or natural disasters (flood, earthquake, landslide, volcano, tornado, etc.), power disruptions, fires, employee errors, hardware or software failures, terrorism or sabotage, bomb or shooter threats, and more.

A DRP can also minimize the negative impacts of disasters by helping to ensure that all business locations are kept safe. In addition to all of these positive effects of having a DRP, it also helps with the following:

  • Ensure employees and team members can react rapidly and restore activity effectively, in light of an emergency or disaster.
  • Capture, summarize, and organize critical information needed to restore business operations.
  • Develop, test, and document a detailed, easy-to-understand plan.
  • Secure contingency plans, and ensure they are cost effective.
  • Build resilience within the business.
  • Identify responsibilities of each team member, and outline disaster practices to ensure effectiveness.
  • Prepare and respond to emergencies most likely to plague certain business, teams, or roles.
  • Ensure the overall prosperity and survival of the business.

Most businesses cannot afford to be non-profitable and lose critical operations for an extended period of time. DRPs help to ensure that all operations can be restored in a quick, responsive manner.

Steps For Creating a Disaster Recovery Plan

When you are writing your disaster recovery plan, start by conducting a thorough business impact analysis to identify your organization’s most essential parts or critical services and how a disaster might affect them. Assess the risk and impact associated with losing business functions in a disaster.

Look at historical or company background information to determine if any disasters have affected the organization in the past, and how they were consequently handled. Perform a gap analysis to compare what is currently being done to prevent or handle a disaster against what should be done, and see if there are missing components. Next, identify any existing preventive controls to mitigate disasters.

From there, you can start creating a disaster recovery plan by following these steps:

  • Develop recovery strategies.
  • Obtain management commitment and authorization to proceed with DRP creation.
  • Classify and prioritize business operations.
  • Set the scope of the DRP, either in covering a whole business, specific teams, or individual people.
  • Develop the cost estimate and scheduling of the plan to share with key stakeholders.
  • Determine supplies, equipment, and other infrastructure that must be maintained during a disaster.
  • Establish an emergency communication system, usually through a call tree, and include support services and assistance information.
  • Document emergency response actions and internal recovery strategies, and designate specific teams to carry them out, as well as dependent processes that must be handled in a particular order.
  • Determine data and records backup and data restoration times to ensure timely IT recovery.
  • Designate specific phases of your DRP, such as a response phase, resumption phase, and restoration phase.
  • Identify “hot” and “cold” sites, when necessary.
  • Plan an evacuation route.
  • Include detailed instructions and contact information in the case of a medical emergency.
  • Determine a comprehensive plan to rebuild a disaster site.
  • Determine a hazard assessment to minimize exposure to risks and dangers.
  • Create an emergency checklist to have on-hand when a disaster strikes.
  • Conduct tests and trainings of the DRP.
  • Perform an annual review of your DRP and document any necessary changes in the plan.

Who Are the Resources Involved in a Disaster Recovery Plan?

A DRP is comprised of many different human resources who are leveraged when a disaster or emergency strikes. These participants are usually grouped into teams to cover a variety of important responsibilities included in a DRP.

The plan development team helps craft the plan and assigns responsibilities to the other resources. The IT and application teams deal with disaster strategies that disrupt that portion of the business, and the emergency response team focuses on the overall emergency response process of the entire organization.

Within the emergency response team is a primary crisis manager and a company spokesperson who both focus on communicating and acting on emergency response procedures. An emergency contact helps in altering the rest of the business of the disaster, specifically to vendors or suppliers who may work remotely.

Tips For Creating a Disaster Recovery Plan

Because a DRP is an important document for any business or organization to have, creating the most accurate, clear, and actionable plan can be daunting. The following tips can help:

  • Establish clearly defined roles for each team member.
  • Get support and buy-in from senior management.
  • Keep the wording and process description simple.
  • Review results with business units.
  • Be flexible and accept suggestions regarding all parts of the DRP.
  • Plan for emergencies most likely to happen where you live, or according to your business.
  • Detail what to do in the event of lost communication, evacuation, and safety threats.
  • Make sure you have a strong communication plan across your organization.
  • Always plan and prepare for the worst case scenario.
  • Conduct extensive risk assessments to ensure you are covering all your bases.
  • Consider the specific needs or accommodations of all employees.
  • Organize your team and perform practice plans before a disaster actually strikes.

Once you have completed the plan, ask the following questions to ensure that your DRP is coherent, comprehensive, and easy to implement:

  • Are all employees able to execute the plan, and is everyone aware of their role?
  • Are backup procedures detailed, and are they accessible within a desired timeline?
  • Are there specific contingency operations in place if one of the primary procedures fails?
  • Is the recovery time objective and recovery point objective (RPO) practical for your business and all of your team members?
  • Can systems be restored before an excessive amount of revenue or data is lost?

Examples of Effective Disaster Recovery Plans and Additional Resources

For more direction in creating the most appropriate and actionable DRP for your business, refer to these recovery plan examples to gain familiarity and understanding of how to write and what to include in a DRP.

  • MIT Disaster Recovery Plan : MIT outlines all critical components of a DRP, including purpose of plan, disaster response, disaster detection, and business continuity teams.
  • IBM Disaster Recovery Plan : IBM clearly documents key details of their business to minimize the effect of a disaster, including recovery procedures, recovery sites, major goals, and plan testing.

To gain an even better idea of how to create the best disaster recovery plan, and detail why every business should have one, refer to these helpful resources and reports:

  • NIST Special Publication 800-34
  • EMC IT Downtime Report
  • Computer Security Resource Center
  • Guide to Test, Training, and Exercise Programs for IT Plans & Capabilities
  • Building an Information Technology Security Awareness & Training Program
  • FEMA: “Emergency Management Guide for Business and Industry”

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What Is an Incident Response Plan for IT?

What is an incident response plan for IT?

What does an incident response plan do?

An incident response plan is a set of instructions to help IT staff detect, respond to, and recover from network security incidents. These types of plans address issues like cybercrime, data loss, and service outages that threaten daily work.

  • Incident response (1:22)
  • Network security checklist

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A sufficient incident response plan offers a course of action for all significant incidents. Some incidents lead to massive network or data breaches that can impact your organization for days or even months. When a significant disruption occurs, your organization needs a thorough, detailed incident response plan to help IT staff stop, contain, and control the incident quickly. For physical disruptors, such as natural disasters and flooding, create a disaster recovery plan .

What is an incident recovery team?

An incident recovery team is the group of people assigned to implement the incident response plan. Generally, these are members of the IT staff who collect, preserve, and analyze incident-related data. Your IT staff may need to work with lawyers and communications experts to make sure that legal obligations are met.

Why do you need an incident response plan?

If your network hasn’t been threatened yet, it will be. If it has, then you know the chaos that can follow a cyber attack. Whether a threat is virtual (security breaches) or physical (power outages or natural disasters), losing data or functionality can be crippling. An incident response plan and a disaster recovery plan help you mitigate risk and prepare for a range of events.

How can you be sure your network is ready for a disaster?

Your network will never be 100 percent secure, so you must prepare both your network and your employees for crises to come. In addition to an incident response plan, you need a thorough disaster recovery plan that can mitigate the damage caused by a disaster.

Are there tools that help automate an incident response plan?

Cisco Umbrella Investigate helps to automate many of the most common steps in an incident response. Investigate's rich threat intelligence adds the security context needed to uncover and predict threats.

Follow the five steps below to maintain business continuity.

How to create an incident response plan

1. determine the critical components of your network.

To protect your network and data against major damage, you need to replicate and store your data in a remote location. Because business networks are expansive and complex, you should determine your most crucial data and systems. Prioritize their backup, and note their locations. These actions will help you recover your network quickly.

2. Identify single points of failure in your network and address them

Just as you should back up your data, you should have a plan B for every critical component of your network, including hardware, software, and staff roles. Single points of failure can expose your network when an incident strikes. Address them with redundancies or software failover features. Do the same with your staff. If a designated employee can’t respond to an incident, name a second person who can take over. By having backups and fail-safes in place, you can keep incident response and operations in progress while limiting damage and disruption to your network and your business."

3. Create a workforce continuity plan

During a security breach or a natural disaster, some locations or processes may be inaccessible. In either case, the top priority is employee safety. Help ensure their safety and limit business downtime by enabling them to work remotely. Build out infrastructure with technologies such as virtual private networks (VPNs) and secure web gateways to support workforce communication.

4. Create an incident response plan

Draw up a formal incident response plan, and make sure that everyone, at all levels in the company, understands their roles. 

An incident response plan often includes:

  • A list of roles and responsibilities for the incident response team members.
  • A business continuity plan.
  • A summary of the tools, technologies, and physical resources that must be in place. 
  • A list of critical network and data recovery processes.
  • Communications, both internal and external. 

5. Train your staff on incident response

Only IT may need to fully understand the incident response plan. But it is crucial that everyone in your organization understands the importance of the plan. After you’ve created it, educate your staff about incident response. Full employee cooperation with IT can reduce the length of disruptions. In addition, understanding basic security concepts can limit the chances of a significant breach.

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COMMENTS

  1. PDF NIST Cybersecurity Framework SANS Policy Templates

    SANS Policy Templates Introduction The Multi-State Information Sharing & Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) is offering this guide to the SLTT community, as a resource to assist with the application and advancement of cybersecurity policies. The policy templates are provided courtesy of the SANS Institute (https://www. sans.org/).

  2. PDF NIST Cybersecurity Framework Policy Template Guide

    The policy templates are provided courtesy of the State of New York and the State of California. The templates can be customized and used as an outline of an organizational policy, with additional details to be added by the end user.

  3. Disaster recovery planning

    We have provided a strategy template to use in developing your departmental disaster recovery plan. Prioritizing your services from most critical to least critical is key to developing a useful plan, which should c learly define the steps and equipment needed to bring these critical services back online.

  4. How to Create a Cybersecurity Disaster Recovery Plan

    A cybersecurity disaster recovery plan should provide an organization with a roadmap for managing a disruptive cybersecurity incident such as a data breach or ransomware attack. Some goals of a cybersecurity disaster recovery plan include: Maintain Business Continuity: Full recovery from a cybersecurity incident can be time-consuming, and the ...

  5. PDF Guide for Cybersecurity Event Recovery

    improving recovery planning by learning lessons from past events, including those of other organizations, helps to ensure the continuity of important mission functions. This publication provides tactical and strategic guidance regarding the planning, playbook developing, testing, and improvement of recovery planning.

  6. Developing an Effective NIST Disaster Recovery Policy and Template

    A Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP), as defined within the framework of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), is your organization's strategic document outlining the process for recovering data and critical functions following a disruptive event. Disasters can range from cybersecurity incidents like data breaches or ransomware ...

  7. The Disaster Recovery Plan

    The Disaster Recovery Plan The terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 are focusing the attention of organization decision makers on the urgent need to prepare for disaster recovery. The Business Continuity Plan (BCP) describes the steps an organization takes when it cannot operate normally because of a... By Chad Bahan

  8. Disaster Recovery Plan Template: 8 Key Steps for Businesses

    4. Choose and Establish a Disaster Recovery Site Next, businesses will want to find a disaster recovery site to manage company backups and support infrastructure. Disaster recovery...

  9. PDF NIST Cybersecurity Framework SANS Policy Templates

    The templates can be used as an outline of an organizational policy, with additional details to be added by the end user. The framework referenced in this guide is the National Institute of Standards and Technology Cybersecurity Framework (NIST CSF) (https://www.nist.gov/).

  10. Disaster Recovery Plan Template: 8 Key Steps for Businesses

    4. Choose and Establish a Disaster Recovery Site Next, businesses will want to find a disaster recovery site to manage company backups and support infrastructure. Disaster recovery sites are typically built in remote locations and are used to help restore IT infrastructure and other mission-critical operations during a long-term outage.

  11. SP 800-184, Guide for Cybersecurity Event Recovery

    In light of an increasing number of cybersecurity events, organizations can improve resilience by ensuring that their risk management processes include comprehensive recovery planning. Identifying and prioritizing organization resources helps to guide effective plans and realistic test scenarios. This preparation enables rapid recovery from incidents when they occur and helps to minimize the ...

  12. PDF IT Disaster Recovery Planning: A Template

    An IT disaster recovery plan is the lynchpin of an overall business continuity strategy. And the purpose of business continuity is to maintain a minimum level of service while restoring the organization to business as usual. If a business fails to put a disaster recovery plan in place then, when disaster strikes, the company risks losing customers

  13. disaster recovery plan (DRP)

    2. A written plan for recovering one or more information systems at an alternate facility in response to a major hardware or software failure or destruction of facilities. Sources: CNSSI 4009-2015 from NIST SP 800-34 Rev. 1 1.

  14. CISA Tabletop Exercise Packages

    Description. CISA Tabletop Exercise Packages (CTEPs) are a comprehensive set of resources designed to assist stakeholders in conducting their own exercises. Partners can use CTEPs to initiate discussions within their organizations about their ability to address a variety of threat scenarios. Each package is customizable and includes template ...

  15. Disaster Recovery Plan Template

    Our disaster recovery plan template will help you create an effective disaster recovery plan for your organization. 1. Disaster Recovery Plan Goal. The goal of this disaster recovery plan is: To protect [Sender.Company] 's core operations. To ensure that critical business functions continue in the event of a disruption.

  16. Disaster Recovery Consultation, Documentation, & Testing

    Description The disaster recovery consultation, documentation and testing service includes system contingency planning and testing services in accordance with National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 800-37 and 800-53.

  17. CISSP: Disaster recovery processes and plans

    As a part of the BRP, the disaster recovery plan (DRP) is a specific recovery plan that is concerned particularly with damaged or lost software, data, and/or hardware on one hand, and on overcoming the consequences of that on the other hand. It aims to minimize, as much as possible, potential functional damages caused by a disaster.

  18. Free Disaster Recovery Plan Templates

    Disaster Recovery Plan Template. Use this template to document and track all critical operations, personnel contact information, and key procedures to perform in the event of a disaster or business disruption. Use the designated space to record critical information, like the backup process, recovery sites, and restoration steps.

  19. What Is an Incident Response Plan for IT?

    An incident response plan is a set of instructions to help IT staff detect, respond to, and recover from network security incidents. These types of plans address issues like cybercrime, data loss, and service outages that threaten daily work. Incident response (1:22) Network security checklist. A sufficient incident response plan offers a ...

  20. CIS Control 17: Incident Response and Management

    Home CIS Critical Security Controls CIS Critical Security Control 17: Incident Response and Management Overview Establish a program to develop and maintain an incident response capability (e.g., policies, plans, procedures, defined roles, training, and communications) to prepare, detect, and quickly respond to an attack.