An experienced belay can save a life.

Using friction on the rope to stop a climber’s fall, a belay (consisting of the rope, anchors, belay device and the belayer below) can react to a sudden, unexpected misstep and prevent catastrophic falls from the climber above.

Welcome to a new era in cybersecurity, where a single ill-advised slip (or email click) can cost your company thousands (millions!) in revenue and a tarnished reputation that may be irreversible.

Ransomware, a type of malicious software designed to block access to a computer system until a sum of money is paid, is just one of the threats to both SMBs and enterprise companies today along their ascent.
All companies need a belay. And their best life-saving device, when threatened with disaster, is a Business Continuity Disaster Recovery Plan.

What is it? How is it constructed? How is it utilized? It’s essentially a well-planned, well-practiced, and well-executed game plan for when something catastrophic happens (hurricane, flood, ransomware, etc.).

A Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is a strategy to get a business up and running as soon as possible in the event of some form of disruption. A Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP), a subset of BCP, is your strategy for restoring vital technology or support systems. When your technology is down, do you have a system to still conduct business, even in a degraded state? When disaster hits, are you able to continue operations without missing a beat?

But before teams begin mapping their route, some pre-climbing instructions are essential. The first step for many organizations is a Business Analysis (which Datamax is well equipped to conduct). What’s the point of this? In the event of a disaster:

• Identify potential events that could negatively impact normal business operations,
• Calculate the likelihood that each event may occur, and
• Quantify the impact that the event could have on your business.

Vice President of Strategic Technology Justin Huffaker consults regularly with businesses about construction their own BCDR. In doing so, he offers these pointers:

1. Know the ropes.

A gold standard in disaster recovery is being able to continue operating at 100 percent. It’s expensive, but it’s doable.

Following best practices for data backup will ensure quick, accurate, and reliable data recovery when it’s needed most. A well-rounded approach may combine both local and cloud-based storage and recovery options. Avoid manual data backup processes whenever possible (common with smaller companies).

Businesses don’t always “know the ropes.” They don’t have the right equipment in place for a number of circumstances or reasons. But a good belayer knows how to execute under pressure and communicate with the customer until they’re safely back up and running.

Tyler IT Manager Kirk Molloy, who’s successfully worked with businesses hit with Ransomware previously, offers this:

“Sometimes you run into situations where they don’t have a solid backup, their database may be gone,” Kirk says. “At that point, what can I provide the customer? We assess where we’re at. What can we do moving forward to get you back online so you can continue doing business as usual. OR, let’s see about rebuilding the network. “

When hit with ransomware, your business essentially has a gun pointed at it, holding it hostage.

“When you have a solid backup plan, you’re turning the gun around and pointing it back at the hackers,” Kirk said. “You’re saying ‘I’ve got backups. I can restore to yesterday, or even an hour ago.”

2. Communicate with your belayer.

Communication planning is a key part of preparedness and executing any Business Continuity Plan.
Failed communication can thwart even the most well devised strategy. This includes notifying necessary parties of the disruption, identifying the location of impact and providing scenario details. Also, as an example, for a customer support staff, it’s supplying the necessary scripts ahead of time to effectively communicate with customers what the situation is and how it’s being handled.

3. Test the ropes.

One of the biggest mistakes businesses make after investing money and time in infrastructure and disaster planning is a failure to test. According to Riverbank’s Annual Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) report, 46 percent of small to medium enterprises never tested their BDR Plan.

Ever been a part of a fire drill? An announcement is made that a test of the building fire alarm will occur at a given time. The time comes, the alarm sounds, and all employees exit the building. Now employees know what the alarm sounds like and what to do when they hear it. Disaster recovery infrastructure and business continuity plans require a similar approach to testing. In fact, firms that aren’t testing aren’t doing their due diligence.

For example, if your organization were to lose power to the building for 24 hours and your plan calls for sending people to home offices to work from home, what does that mean exactly? Are the Internet connections employees have at home fast enough for business use? Are the systems used by your business able to support working remotely? How will people communicate? How will conference calls occur? How will inbound customer calls be handled? What will the message be that you provide to customers, if any, about the power outage and the viability of your business to function? Et cetera, et cetera…

Datamax has the rope, the anchor, and all the devices necessary to help organizations get back up and running again. In the event of a sudden fall, it’s always best for businesses to have a trusted, experienced belay — a solid, tested BCDR.