Preparing for the Unexpected: A Disaster Recovery Plan Checklist

No business owner should leave things to chance and just hope that a natural disaster won’t hit his/her business. If you want to cover your bases, you should invest in risk management and have a disaster recovery plan in place. Find out how to devise a DR plan checklist here.

Unfortunately, natural disasters happen when people least expect it. If you are a business owner, you know that a power outage has the potential to be disastrous.

Investing in risk management and covering your bases beforehand will help avoid mass chaos and panic in the long run.

Here are some things you should have on your disaster recovery plan checklist.

Your Disaster Recovery Plan Starts With a Trustworthy Source

The first thing on your disaster recovery plan checklist should be to find a trusted IT partner to help you through this process.

Immersion Security has a lot of experience in risk management.

These professionals will work on identifying any potential threats and will also develop and put in place the recovery plans.

Some tasks and assessments that your source can help you with would be:

  • Vulnerability Scans
  • Risk Assessments
  • Risk Remediation
  • Risk Management Program Design

The process of creating a disaster recovery system can be intricate, so it is best to contact the professionals for a foolproof plan.

Know Your Important Data

When disaster recovery planning, it is crucial to understand where your high-value data is and what that means for your specific business.

This high-value data would be any sensitive customer information. This data could also be files that you frequently use on a day-to-day basis.

It might be helpful to create a hierarchy system of data for your business which shows you what is the most important to least important data you have stored.

The hierarchy that you think up will show you which type of data is what you will most want to consider protecting because it is the most critical.

What is Your Ideal Recovery Time?

Every business is different; therefore every recovery plan is different including the recovery time.

You will need to decide how quickly you would ideally want/need to have your data back up and running for your business.

For example, the least expensive option (storing data offsite) often be the one that takes the most time.

Other things to consider that will affect recovery speed is is the data would be stored onsite or in the cloud or if you use a tape or a disk.

Whatever you choose, use the system that provides your business with the optimal recovery time for your budget.

Make Updates Accordingly

As your internal systems data changes, so should your data recovery system.

Not updating your recovery system is a common mistake that can cost you big.

These changes include any major software updates, new technologies, or updated algorithms.

Practice, Practice, Practice

While having a disaster recovery plan in place is admirable, the only way to know if it works as it should is to test it out.

Implement practice procedures and do regular testing to make sure that everything is performing as it should.

Be Prepared

Using these disaster recovery plan tips can help your business in its most desperate time of need if it comes down to it.

Immersion Security will help keep you secure from any cybersecurity threats.

Take a look at our blog for more business cyber security tips and advice.