Digital Business Continuity Planning

Had an online “discussion” with a younger cyber security professional who proudly called himself a CISO. His claim? “IT Service Continuity Management (ITSCM) is the same as Business Continuity Management (BCM). And anyway, a CISO shouldn’t be responsible for it.” And to top it off, he said: “That’s how it’s taught in college.” Sigh. If that is what is being taught, then we have bigger problems than ransomware. I highly doubt any serious program confuses subsets with the whole picture, but maybe this is what happens when textbooks gather dust and professors have never seen a real crisis outside of exam week. Let’s clear this up: BCM = Business Continuity Management. It is about keeping the entire business running during disruption. Not just IT, not just a backup script. Think people, processes, suppliers, customers, facilities, and the brand you will never rebuild if you fail. BIA = Business Impact Analysis. The backbone of BCM. It asks: “What happens to revenue, operations, and trust if this process dies?” Then it sets recovery priorities and timelines. Now, BCM is not one box. It is a set of disciplines: 🔸 Crisis Management – Leadership, decisions, and communication under fire. 🔸 Emergency Response – Protecting people and facilities first, because no IT plan matters if your staff is not safe. 🔸 IT Service Continuity Management (ITSCM) – Making sure technology recovery aligns with business needs. Important, but just one piece. 🔸 Work Area Recovery (WAR) – Giving staff a place and tools to keep working if their usual site is gone. 🔸 Supply Chain Continuity – Because if your one critical supplier goes down, your continuity plan is just wishful thinking. So no, ITSCM is not BCM. It is a subset. A part of the orchestra, not the conductor. And the CISO? Pretending continuity is not their problem is career malpractice. If you are leading cyber but cannot connect it to BCM, BIA, and business survival, then you are not a CISO. You are an IT manager with a fancier title. Continuity is not academic theory. It is leadership. It is resilience. It is survival. And if colleges really are teaching otherwise, then it is time they update the syllabus, preferably before their next “future CISO” walks into a boardroom and confuses backups with business continuity. 🔔 Follow Michael Reichstein for more cybersecurity leadership where resilience meets business value ♻️ Useful? Share to help others graduate from buzzwords to reality #cybersecurity #ciso #leadership #businesscontinuity #resilience #riskmanagement #itscm #governance #strategy

The Google Cloud Wake-Up Call: Why Your Business Needs Multi-Cloud Redundancy Just hours ago, a stark reminder arrived in our inboxes, on our screens, and in our disrupted workflows. Today’s massive Google Cloud outage didn’t just take down Google services. It cascaded across the digital ecosystem, disrupting Spotify, Discord, OpenAI, Shopify, GitHub, Twitch, and dozens of other platforms that millions of users and businesses depend on daily. The outage peaked with over 14,000 reports on Downdetector, affecting everything from video calls to document collaboration to AI applications. The Domino Effect Was Swift and Brutal When Google Cloud stumbled at 1:50 PM ET, it exposed a uncomfortable truth: our interconnected digital world has single points of failure that can bring entire business operations to their knees. Companies that had built their entire infrastructure around Google’s “reliable” cloud found themselves helpless, watching revenue streams halt and customer trust erode in real-time. The Real Cost of Putting All Eggs in One Basket While Google resolved the core issues within hours, the damage extends far beyond the immediate downtime. Consider the ripple effects: lost sales during peak business hours, missed meetings with critical clients, halted development deployments, and the immeasurable cost of explaining to customers why your “cloud-first” service suddenly went dark. Multi-Cloud Isn’t Paranoia—It’s Business Continuity Smart enterprises are already implementing multi-cloud strategies, not as a luxury but as a necessity. This means architecting core services to seamlessly failover between providers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. When one provider experiences issues, traffic automatically routes to healthy alternatives. Your Action Plan Starts Now The question isn’t if another major cloud outage will happen—it’s when. Forward-thinking organizations are already: • Identifying their most critical services and implementing cross-cloud redundancy • Testing failover procedures regularly, not just during disasters • Diversifying their cloud dependencies across multiple providers • Building incident response playbooks that assume their primary cloud will fail Today’s Google outage won’t be the last. But it could be the wake-up call that saves your business from the next one. The companies that learn from today’s disruption and invest in true redundancy will be the ones still serving customers when the next outage hits. The question is: will yours be one of them? What’s your organization’s backup plan when your primary cloud provider goes down? #CloudComputing #BusinessContinuity #MultiCloud #TechStrategy #GoogleCloud #AWS #Azure

Red Sea Cable Cuts: A Wake-Up Call for Geo-Resilience The recent subsea cable cuts in the Red Sea disrupted a significant share of Europe-Asia traffic, slowing transactions and e-commerce worth billions. Rerouting kept the internet alive, while naturally comes at the cost of higher latency and congestion. This is a reminder that critical infrastructure is now a frontline of geopolitical risk. Resilience is not just a technical checklist, it is a core business design principle. Three Critical Moves Mitigate Now: Diversify cable routes, adopt strategic multi-cloud, explore LEO satellites as complementary pilots (proven useful in crises, but not a silver bullet). Redesign the Future: Build modular IT stacks, embed compliance-by-design, strengthen supply chains with near-/friendshoring. Accept & Manage Risk: Stockpile chips, define exit thresholds, and plan failovers: ATMs dispensing capped cash offline, hospitals reverting to manual protocols, retailers shifting to local stock, manufacturers holding critical spares, or energy operators switching to manual controls.   Beyond Infrastructure Board Accountability: Regulators and investors increasingly hold directors liable for resilience failures. Fiduciary duty now extends to digital and supply chain continuity. Regulatory Foresight: EU DORA, US supply chain mandates, and AI regulation are raising the bar for operational resilience. Competitive Advantage: Firms with robust failovers do not just survive shocks, they win share while others falter. Scenario Planning: Boards must war-game chokepoint disruptions (suppliers, technologies, sanctions,…) like they stress test finances. Hybrid Threats: Physical cuts often intersect with cyber campaigns, boards must plan for compounded risks. Culture & Talent: Teams drilled for crisis response are as critical as cables and servers. Training and Knowledge Sharing: Training to cover advanced resilience techniques and knowledge-sharing communities, incl. with relevant 3rd parties, are key.   At BCG, we help boards and executives Identify critical business services and prioritize resilience measures accordingly, conduct resilience scenario testing and war-games, build adaptive stacks, and design operating models that thrive under disruption. The question is not if you will be tested, it is when. When did your Board last pressure-test the resilience of its most critical business services, vendor or route? #Resilience #Geopolitics #Cloud #RiskManagement #BoardGovernance #BCG Vladimir Lukic / Or Klier / Filippo Scognamiglio / Dr. Amir Alsbih / Miri M.

Banks today must operate in an environment of ever‐increasing uncertainty, where extreme events—from cyberattacks and natural disasters to geopolitical shocks—can abruptly disrupt critical supply chains. In the digital age, resilient supply chain risk management is essential not only for maintaining operational continuity but also for protecting the financial ecosystem that supports banks’ services. 1). A comprehensive approach begins with a holistic risk assessment that extends beyond internal systems to encompass all third‐party vendors, technology providers, data centers, and logistics partners. 2). By deploying advanced analytics and artificial intelligence, banks can map their entire supply chain in real time, identify vulnerabilities early, and trigger mitigation strategies to prevent interruptions before they escalate. 3). Diversification is fundamental. Banks are increasingly reducing dependence on any single supplier or geographic region by establishing multiple sources for key products and services. This multi-layered diversification minimizes the risk of disruption if one source fails, ensuring continuity of operations. 4). Equally critical is digital integration: modern technologies such as the Internet of Things, blockchain, and cloud-based platforms provide end-to-end visibility across the supply chain. 5). Continuous monitoring and automated alerts enable banks to rapidly respond to potential problems with flexibility and precision. 6). Robust cybersecurity is also imperative, as digital supply chains are prime targets for increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks. Banks must enforce stringent cybersecurity protocols not only within their own systems but also throughout their vendor networks. 7). Regular audits, compliance with standards like ISO 27001 and the NIST framework, and information sharing with trusted partners help fortify the entire ecosystem against intrusions. 8). Strategic partnerships further strengthen resilience. Collaborative relationships with vendors and technology providers allow banks to jointly develop risk management frameworks, share best practices, and coordinate emergency response plans. 9). Regular scenario planning and stress testing—simulating extreme events like coordinated cyberattacks or supply chain disruptions—ensure that contingency measures are current and actionable. 10). A culture of continuous improvement is vital: post-event reviews, feedback loops, and iterative updates to risk management strategies enable banks to learn from past disruptions and adapt to emerging threats. By integrating these principles—comprehensive risk mapping, diversification, digital integration, robust cybersecurity, strategic partnerships, agile scenario planning, and continuous learning—banks enhance their supply chain resilience and better navigate extreme events in today’s dynamic digital landscape, thereby protecting their operations, customer trust, and overall financial stability.

Waiting until you have an incident to understand which of your systems are critical can have serious consequences, sometimes even life or death consequences. Here is an unusual example: It was recently reported that hackers launched a ransomware attack on a Swiss farmer's computer system, disrupting the flow of vital data from a milking robot. See https://lnkd.in/eVhzu429. The farmer apparently did not want to pay a $10K ransom, and thought he didn't really need data on the amount of milk produced in the short term. In addition, the milking robot also worked without a computer or network connection. The cows could therefore continue to be milked. The farmer, however, apparently didn't account for the fact that the data at issue was particularly important for pregnant animals. As a result of the attack, the farmer was unable to recognize that one calf was dying in the womb, and in the end, this lack of data may have prevented the famer from saving the calf. While most of us will hopefully not find themselves in this exact situation, the takeaways are the same for all of us: 1. CONDUCT A BIA: Consider conducting a business impact assessment (BIA) to understand the criticality and maximum tolerable downtime (MTD) of all your systems, processes, and activities, from a business or commercial standpoint. Of course, such analysis should include the health and safety impact of downtime. 2. VENDORS: As part of the BIA, consider assessing the MTD for each vendor as well. This will help you decide which primary vendors require a secondary, as well as define the terms of your contract with the secondary vendors. More details on backup vendors can be found here: https://lnkd.in/e-eVNvQz. 3. UPDATE YOUR BC/DR PLAN: Once you have conducted a BIA, update your business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) plan to ensure that that your recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) are consistent with the MTD determined through your BIA. 4. PRACTICE: Conduct regular incident response (IR) and BC/DR tabletop exercises, as well as full failover exercises, to test and improve your ability to respond to a real event. Advice on conducting successful tabletop exercises can be found here: https://lnkd.in/eKrgV9Cg. Stay safe out there!

☢ The Overlooked Importance of Vendor Risk Management and Business Continuity☢ Last week’s massive computer outage caused by CrowdStrike's update (Channel File 291) on Microsoft systems serves as a stark reminder of the critical need for comprehensive Vendor Risk Management (VRM) and Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery (BC/DR) processes. The incident, which resulted in widespread Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) issues across Windows systems globally, disrupted operations across multiple sectors and negatively impacted thousands of lives, likely including your own. To effectively manage vendor risks, organizations should implement the following controls in alignment with well-established industry standards and frameworks: 1. ISO/IEC 27001:2022:   - A.15.1: Establish and maintain documented policies and procedures to manage the risks associated with supplier relationships.   - A.15.2: Ensure information security requirements are incorporated into supplier agreements.   - A.15.3: Regularly monitor and evaluate supplier performance against agreed-upon information security requirements. 2. AICPA SOC 2:   - CC9.2: Assess and manage risks associated with vendors and business partners.   - CC8.1: Implement changes to infrastructure, data, software, and procedures to meet objectives. 3. ISO/IEC 42001:2023 (Clauses):   - 6.1.2: Perform regular risk assessments to identify potential disruptions and their impact on AI systems.   - 6.1.3: Develop and implement treatment plans to mitigate identified risks and ensure continuity of AI operations. Organizations must also ensure business continuity and disaster recovery plans are comprehensive and tested regularly to mitigate the impact of such incidents. Your controls should include: 1. ISO/IEC 27001:2022:   - A.17.1: Maintain information security at an appropriate level during disruptions.   - A.17.2: Develop and implement ICT continuity plans.   - A.12.3: Maintain and regularly test backup copies of information, software, and systems.   - A.16.1: Establish incident response procedures. 2. AICPA SOC 2:   - CC7.5: Develop activities to recover from security incidents.   - A1.3: Test recovery plan procedures periodically. 3. ISO/IEC 42001:2023 (Clauses):   - 6.1.2: Perform regular risk assessments.   - 6.1.3: Implement risk treatment plans. 4. ISO 22301:2019 (Clauses):   - 8.2: Implement systematic processes for analyzing business impact and assessing risks of disruption.   - 8.3: Identify and select business continuity strategies.   - 8.4: Provide plans and procedures to manage disruptions.   - 8.5: Maintain a program of exercising and testing business continuity strategies. To discuss more, or for help getting started, please reach out! A-LIGN #iso42001 #iso27001 #BCDR #TheBusinessofCompliance #ComplianceAlingedtoYou

The Day the Cloud Disappeared: A Wake-Up Call for the Digital Age Let’s imagine a world where you wake up, reach for your phone, and nothing works. Not just your phone, but everything around the globe. No emails, no online banking, no social media. This is the reality when cloud computing fails. 🌐 The Silent Powerhouse Cloud computing is the invisible force behind our daily operations. It powers our businesses, keeps us connected, and stores our valuable data. We often take it for granted, but what happens when this powerhouse goes offline? 💥 The Ripple Effect of Cloud Failures 1. Business Stagnation: Companies across the globe grind to a halt. Projects stall, communication lines break, and revenues plummet. The impact on the global economy is immediate and severe. 2. Communication Blackout: Emails, messaging apps, and video calls—all gone. The digital silence is deafening, affecting personal and professional relationships. 3. Financial Disarray: Banks and financial institutions rely heavily on the cloud. A failure disrupts transactions, causing chaos in global markets and personal finances alike. 4. Healthcare Crisis: Medical records and telehealth services are cloud-based. A disruption delays treatments, risking patient health and lives. 5. Supply Chain Paralysis: Logistics systems rely on cloud computing for smooth operations. A failure means delays in deliveries, affecting everything from groceries to critical supplies. 🔧 Building a Resilient Future To prevent such a catastrophe, we need to rethink our strategies: 1. Robust Planning: Develop comprehensive disaster recovery and business continuity plans to minimize disruption. 2. Diversification: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Use multiple cloud providers to reduce risk. 3. Regular Backups: Ensure regular and secure data backups. It’s your safety net in times of crisis. 4. Edge Computing: Incorporate edge computing to reduce dependency on the cloud by processing data closer to its source. 5. Enhanced Cybersecurity: Strengthen cybersecurity measures to protect against potential attacks on cloud systems. 🚀 The Path Forward The digital age is here to stay, and with it comes the responsibility to build a resilient infrastructure. Cloud computing is a double-edged sword—it offers incredible convenience but requires robust safeguards. Your Turn: How is your organization preparing for potential cloud failures? What strategies have you implemented to ensure continuity? Share your thoughts and experiences below. #CloudComputing #BusinessContinuity #TechDisruption #FutureReady #DigitalResilience

We built a fully operational BCP in just 8 weeks—without a traditional BIA. Here’s how. A major collectibles giant came to us in crisis mode. They needed a business continuity plan in just 8 weeks. The traditional approach would have taken months—so we used Value Stream Mapping. 🔹 Instead of getting lost in spreadsheets, we mapped their most important customer facing workflows. 🔹 Instead of theoretical risk rankings, we identified real single points of failure. 🔹 Instead of 100-page reports, we built a tactical, understandable plan. The result? A real, functional BCP, delivered in time to meet their deadline. What’s stopping more companies from ditching the traditional approach? Let’s discuss. #Resilience #BCP #BusinessContinuity