Disaster recovery and IT service continuity planning strategies

Disaster Recovery and IT Continuity

Over the last several years, the issue of disaster recovery has been increasingly brought to the forefront. This is because both manmade (i.e. terrorism / cyber attacks) and natural disasters can create tremendous amounts of disruption to IT infrastructure. The result is that the entire area can be completely cutoff and unable to communicate with the outside world. (Sousa, 2014)

In many cases, everyone is relying on IT-based solutions to meet critical objectives, reduce collateral damage and restore services back to normal. To achieve these larger benchmarks requires focusing on access control. This is when access is provided to select individuals who have the appropriate levels of clearance to access select amounts of information. (Sousa, 2014)

Recently, these challenges are becoming more pronounced with rouge organizations engaging in them to steal and sell sensitive information. This is problematic, as it has the potential to create widespread disruptions and the loss of confidence in the firm. To deal with these challenges requires developing an effective DR / BCP strategy. Together, these elements will illustrate how the organization can mitigate and address these issues well into the future. (Sousa, 2014)

Disaster Recovery / IT Service Continuity Planning Functions

All recovery will take place under the command and control of the Data Security Coordinator. This individual will have the responsibility for monitoring sudden changes in the organization's band width and attacks that will try to breach various firewalls which are interconnected. Throughout the process, they will work with staff members to address both internal and external threats. (Veiga, 2007)

Internally, there are a number of checks and balances to prevent former / rouge employees from gaining access to sensitive information. This means that they will test the backup systems regularly and change the password every 90 days. To gain access to any information, everyone will be required to enter four different user names and passwords. Any kind of unusual activity will be flagged and sent to the Data Security Coordinator for review. This will isolate and prevent any kind of threats from spreading. In the event of an actual attack, the backup system will be used to reboot the information and ensure that the organization can continue to function normally. (Veiga, 2007)

Externally, the information will be encrypted and all of the firewalls will be interconnected. At the same time, the system will determine where files are accessed and which individuals are involved. In the event there is a breach, access will be restricted to select personal. The backup system will be utilized to provide additional support and ensure that it is in compliance with ISO/IEC 27002. This is achieved by focusing on physical / human resource security and access control. These ideas will ensure that all of the larger objectives from ISO/IEC 27002 are achieved. (Veiga, 2007)

Conclusion

Clearly, all the overall nature of IT security issues is becoming a major challenge for firms. This is because manmade or nature related events can have an impact on the way data is stored, retrieved and accessed. To address these challenges, the organization must focus on utilizing a hybrid model. This requires using flexibility and applying key concepts to analyze and deal with any kind of vulnerabilities. The Data Security Coordinator will work with staff members to understand what is happening and determine the best course of action. In some cases, this means they will isolate the threat, take the primary servers offline or both. When this happens, they can turn to the backup servers to provide access to authorized personnel and reduce the amounts of recovery time. This will help the firm to adjust with the changing nature of the threats and adapt to a host of challenges.