Business Continuity
Ability to continue essential operations and services during and after disruptive events, such as natural disasters, cyber-attacks, or pandemics, while minimizing financial loss and maintaining stakeholder confidence. It involves the development and implementation of strategies, plans, and procedures to ensure the resilience of critical business functions, infrastructure, and personnel, often encompassing risk assessment, contingency planning, disaster recovery, and crisis management. The goal of business continuity is to mitigate potential threats, preserve reputation, and sustain business operations to safeguard the interests of employees, customers, and stakeholders.
Close terminology
Disaster Recovery – The process of restoring business operations and IT systems to normal functionality after a disruptive event.
Crisis Management – The coordinated efforts and procedures an organization undertakes to effectively manage and respond to a crisis situation that threatens its operations, reputation, or stakeholders.
Contingency Planning – The process of creating a plan to ensure that an organization can continue to operate and recover quickly and effectively in the event of a disruption or disaster.
Business Impact Analysis (BIA) – The process of evaluating and quantifying the potential effects of disruptions to critical business functions and processes, helping prioritize recovery efforts and resource allocation.
Resilience – The ability of an organization to adapt and respond effectively to unexpected changes or disruptions, maintaining essential functions and swiftly recovering from setbacks.
Incident Response – The systematic approach to addressing and managing the aftermath of security incidents, breaches, or disruptions to minimize their impact and restore normal operations.
Preparedness
The proactive measures taken by an organization to anticipate and plan for potential disruptions or emergencies, including the development of policies, procedures, training, and resources to enhance its ability to respond effectively and recover swiftly. Preparedness activities often encompass risk assessment, scenario planning, training exercises, and the establishment of communication protocols to ensure readiness for various types of threats or events.
Critical infrastructure
IBM: “ Critical infrastructure refers to the systems, facilities and assets that are vital for the functioning of society and the economy. ” Some sectors are especially important in that respect - regarding complexity, interconnections and fact that any threat to these sectors could have potentially debilitating national security, economic, and public health or safety consequences. For instance: Chemical Sector, Commercial Facilities Sector, Communications Sector, Critical Manufacturing Sector, Dams Sector, Defense Industrial Base Sector, Emergency Services Sector, Energy Sector.
Supply chain
The series of goods or service providers that are involved in passing products from manufacturers to the supplied organization.
INs and OUTs (section under development)
coming in
going out
Controls to review
regulation, documentation, reports