The cyber crime threat landscape is expanding. This isn’t surprising – aided by businesses’ lack of cyber crime, particularly the use of ransomware, is an increasingly lucrative industry. All of which is why a business continuity plan is essential for ALL businesses!

Cyber criminals have demonstrated that they are willing to unlock systems following ransom payments and if your data and systems aren’t recoverable easily, you are going to lose significant amounts of money due to downtime.

For example, two of the three US cities currently under attack from ransomware, eventually paid ransoms of $600,000 and $500,000 respectively.

Rightly or wrongly, it was judged that paying the ransom to regain access to their systems was the lesser evil.

And with the 2017 WannaCry ransomware attack on the NHS costing over £100m, one can sympathise with the logic.

There is a better solution, however. Your organisation needs a business continuity plan.

Here’s why.

The Antidote to an Increasing Threat Landscape

It’s no secret that cyber crime is the most serious threat to businesses. In fact, it has been estimated that British businesses are battling 38 ransomware attacks a day.

A business continuity plan is essential, therefore, not just a recommendation but a business essential.

Only 10% of businesses without a business continuity and disaster recovery plan survive a disaster. And with a range of threats, including power outages, theft, and hardware failure (amongst others), you’re risking your company without contingency planning.

And you may already have a plan in place, but it’s essential that cyber crime is treated with the severity it deserves. Especially considering Cybersecurity Ventures’ prediction that cyber crime costs could spiral to $6 trillion annually by 2021.

Cyber security, therefore, must form the crux of your business continuity plan. A serious threat demands serious preparation and contingency planning.

Ensuring that your business has a robust business continuity plan in place puts the power back in your hands should a ransomware attack strike.

The point is – you don’t need to pay the ransom, nor accept loss of data.

Your business continuity plan is essential in helping you simply roll back to a clean, malware-free version of your systems, seizing the initiative away from the cyber criminals.

But what does an optimal, fit-for-purpose contingency plan look like?

The Optimal Business Continuity Plan

A fit-for-purpose backup and business continuity system works on the principle of layered security.

In this instance, we’ve highlighted three layers of file storage;

1. On Device – This will be your default copy stored on your device.

2. External Storage – This might be a USB stick, external hard drive, or an on-site server.

3. Off-site Cloud Storage – This might be storage in the cloud, or another method of off-site storage, meaning that if you suffer data losses or a system failure, you can run your operations from a cloud copy.

Without a business continuity plan, the first layer is your only copy, meaning that if your device suffers a cyber attack then all of your data is lost forever.

We recommend, as part of your contingency planning, that you utilise all three layers of security, ensuring that if one or two methods are compromised then you still have a third to draw upon.

As a business owner, your ability to implement a business continuity plan is firmly in your hands – contact us on 01283 753 333 or at hello@neuways.com.