Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery - Risk Analysis and Control

In the risk evaluation phase, there are a number of key areas that must be covered. One of the most important is to understand probable threats. In an ideal world, which most of us have noticed does not exist, we would identify and protect ourselves against all threats to ensure that our business continues to survive. Obviously, we are constrained by other factors such as budgets, time and priorities and need to apply cost benefit analysis to ensure we are protecting the most critical business functions.

A second important step is to identify all probable threats and prioritize them. Threats, typically, can be classified in several ways such as internal/external, man-made/natural, primary/secondary, accidental/intentional, controllable/not controllable, warning/no warning, frequency, duration, speed of onset etc. While classifying threats is helpful in terms of understanding their characteristics and potential controls, grouping and understanding by business impact is also important. Obviously, the same impact can result from a number of different threats.

Identifying mission critical business processes and systems is another fundamental building block of the business continuity plan. After your critical business processes and systems and probable threats are established, the next step is to identify vulnerabilities and loss potential. This requires an extensive scan of the organization to identify vulnerabilities and then analysis to understand those vulnerabilities which would have the greatest impact on your critical business processes and the organization. This starts to clarify and quantify potential losses, which helps to establish priorities.

Following the identification of the most probable threats and vulnerabilities, an analysis of existing controls is needed. This spans physical security as well as people, processes, data, communications and asset protection. Some controls such as physical security and data backup are obvious. Other controls required are often less obvious, but they can be identified through the risk evaluation process.

Once the key building blocks of critical business functions, most probable threats, vulnerabilities and controls are identified, the next stage is to develop an understanding of the probability of threats factored by the severity or impact of the threats. This leads to the business impact analysis phase which establishes priorities for protection.

The goal is to minimize threats, impacts and downtime and to mitigate any losses. Fundamentally, the goal is to protect your people, protect your data, protect your vital communications, protect your assets and to protect your brand and reputation. Overall, of course, the goal is to ensure your business continues to operate and to do it in a cost-effective way meeting standards of reasonable and prudent judgment.

About The Author

Robert Mahood has significant technology and management experience in data communications, internet, storage, disaster recovery and data recovery. He is currently the president of Midwest Data Recovery. www.midwestdatarecovery.com

bmahood@midwestdatarecovery.com, 312 907 2100 or 866 786 2595

---

Big Time Disaster Recovery Solutions Available for the Little Guy

There was a time - not too long ago -... Read More

Want To Beat The Odds? Disaster Recovery Planning is Essential

Statistics show two out of five businesses go out of... Read More

How to Effectively Back Up Your Data

What to backup, and what to loseThe oldest "computer expression"... Read More

I Lost It! Simple Guide To Recovering Corrupted Images And Files

WinUndelete WinUndelete? is an easy to use undelete software utility... Read More

Online Data Backups for Newbies

How long have you been doing business online? Whether you... Read More

Avoiding Hard Disk Data Recovery Services

As a home computer owner, one of the greatest threats... Read More

Do I Really Need To Backup?

Okay, computers a machine, right? Okay, maybe not yours. You... Read More

Data Backups ? One Key to Business Survival

Your customer data is a precious resource that can literally... Read More

5 RAID Data Recovery Prevention Tips

If you have spent the time to increase your computer's... Read More

Computer Data Backup - Data Backup Solution Will Give You A Peace Of Mind

Imagine that you have been working on a file for... Read More

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery - A Business Not a Technology Issue

Hackers, hurricanes, fires, flooding, power outages, denial of service attacks,... Read More

How To Use Spyware Elimination Software

Spyware elimination software is designed to detect and eliminate spyware.... Read More

Data Recovery - What Not to Do!

Data recovery is a tricky thing, and if you've somehow... Read More

Backup 101 - How To Pick The Right Backup Software

Vision Backup 10 Enterprise is an advanced and easy-to-use backup... Read More

The Best Data Recovery Choice For You

The best defense against a loss of data is a... Read More

Hard Drive Crash? The Essential Data Recovery Report

Your worst nightmare just became a horrifying reality. You keep... Read More

Backing Up Personal Computers

Backup on business computers is typically not the user's concern... Read More

Disaster Recovery Made Easy With Online Backups

Whenever disaster strikes the most critical asset that every company... Read More

Data Recovery - You Can Get It Back!

Data recovery is a process whereby you can save data... Read More

3 Ways Computers Can Hurt Your Ministry - Part 1 - Ineffective Data Backups

Our computers have become almost indispensable ministry tools. What would... Read More

Its All In The Planning - Surviving Disaster

ITS ALL IN THE PLANNING - PREPARING FOR THE UNTHINKABLE*... Read More

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery - Selecting A Business Continuity Strategy

The risk analysis and business impact analysis have identified risks... Read More

Data Recovery: Beginners Tips

Right now you probably in a lot of mental pain,... Read More

The Importance of Data Backups

All computers and their components are subject to failure. In... Read More

Learn How To Make Data Backup Over The Internet!

Why should you backup your data on the Internet?There are... Read More

Read This Now: Its Not If You Will Lose Your Data, Its When Will You Lose Your Data

With Adware, SpyWare, E-Mail Viruses, Java Script Viruses and Hardware... Read More

Data Recovery

Every person who uses a personal computer will eventually face... Read More

Data Recovery Processes

Six months ago my computer crashed. When I turned my... Read More

How Secure Are Online Data Backups?

Processing DATA is what all businesses do. Protecting data is... Read More

When Disaster Strikes: How Long Would Your Business Survive if Files On Your Computer Disappeared?

A Tornado? In Birmingham? In The United Kingdom? Unthinkable!Yes, in... Read More

Offsite Data Backup Not Just for Fortune 500 Companies Anymore

In today's high paced digital world there is a very... Read More

Bill Gates Made Data Recovery Easy

Bill gates provided a ready made option in Microsoft windows,... Read More

Is Your Backup Good Enough?

As someone who has seen quite a few hard drive... Read More