Cyber Resilience Planning

Dateline: April 21, 2017

Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend.

Cybersecurity continues to be top of mind for many as story after story of breaches emerge.  In an earlier Friday Wrap, we shared a thought that it’s just a matter of time before your organization has a breach, and that’s the new normal.  Today we share another similar thought about the importance of cyber resilience planning.  A Forbes article from a few years ago suggested 4 key components to a cyber resilience plan, which are still very relevant today.  The article, Why Cyber Security is Not Enough: You Need Cyber Resilience, suggests that cyber resilience is about defense and protection, and includes these:

  • Defining business risks. Put the “compliance checklist” away. Forget the regulations that govern your industry for a minute. Just look at your company. But instead of focusing on the inputs, turn your attention to outcomes. In the event of a cyber attack, what consequences can you live with? What would put you under? This will tell you what your “crown jewels” are … and where you need to invest time and resources.
  • Developing a security policy. As we said, cyber resilience includes cyber security. But security now focuses very directly on threats to your key assets (including the people, processes, and technology that are connected to or have access to those assets), and on the controls that can mitigate those threats.
  • Delineate a cyber recovery plan. What will you do to ensure prioritization, agility, and adaptability in the face of a successful cyber attack? Your plan needs to be specific, comprehensive, and rigorous.
  • Determining a testing regime. Practice makes perfect … so put your cyber recovery plan through its paces on a regular basis to ensure that you have cyber resilience you can count on.  And thoroughly test your security posture as your environment changes.

How robust is your cyber resilience plan?  Do you have a clear idea of what to protect and how to protect it?

That’s a WRAP!  Have a nice weekend!

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