From 2023 to 2024, small businesses in Australia lost an average of $49,600 to cybercrime, an alarming 8% increase from the previous year, while medium-sized businesses lost an average of $62,800. These figures highlight the growing financial risks posed by cyberattacks and the need for businesses to be prepared.
As we move into 2025, now is the ideal time to strengthen your cyber resilience with a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP). In this blog, we’ll cover everything you need to know about implementing a plan that minimises downtime, protects your data, and helps your business recover quickly from cyber incidents.
What is a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP)?
A DRP is a step-by-step guide for how a business responds to and recovers from a cyber security incident. Its goal is to ensure a fast, effective response that minimises damage, reduces downtime, and aligns recovery with the organisation’s security and business objectives.
In short, it’s your business’s safety net, designed to keep things running smoothly and protect critical assets when the unexpected happens. A robust DRP will:
- Provide clear steps for responding to cyber security incidents.
- Define roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities for response teams.
- Ensure compliance with legal and regulatory requirements.
- Establish communication processes for both internal and external stakeholders.
- Guide post-incident activities for continuous improvement.
What Are The Benefits of Implementing a DRP?
A DRP ensures business resilience during and after a cyber security incident by maintaining continuity, protecting sensitive data, and minimising impacts. It helps restore operations quickly, keeps stakeholders informed, and reduces downtime. Regular reviews and improvements make recovery faster in the future, saving both time and money.
5 Key Components of a DRP
A DRP should include the following elements:
- Preparation
This component sets the foundation for a strong incident response by clearly defining roles, establishing communication processes, and ensuring necessary resources are in place. This includes identifying common cyber threats and attack methods, defining roles and responsibilities for key teams like the Cyber Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT) and Senior Executive Management Team (SEMT), and setting up internal and external communication processes. It also covers legal and regulatory requirements, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), and ensures that insurance policies are prepared and easily accessible.
- Detect, Investigate, and Respond
This component focuses on promptly identifying cyber security incidents, assessing their impact, and ensuring a coordinated response. It includes a clear decision-making framework for activating the response plan and CSIRT, along with criteria to classify incidents based on their effect on systems, stakeholders, and business operations. It also outlines protocols for communication, logistics, and escalation, ensuring responses are swift, organised, and effective.
- Contain, Gather Evidence & Remediate
This component aims to minimise the impact of a cyber security incident, protect critical evidence, and resolve the issue efficiently. It includes actions to contain the damage, prevent escalation, and safeguard evidence, along with processes for documenting key details like severity and response steps. It also provides guidelines for collecting, preserving, and logging evidence, as well as creating a remediation plan.
- Recovery & Reporting
This component focuses on restoring systems, maintaining business continuity, and learning from the incident to strengthen future responses. It involves creating and executing a recovery plan to restore IT and operational systems, followed by post-recovery monitoring to ensure security and proper functionality. Additionally, it includes completing a cyber security incident report to document the event and address vulnerabilities to prevent future incidents.
- Learn & Improve
This component centres on learning from the incident to improve future responses and enhance readiness. It involves conducting post-incident reviews to identify root causes, successes, and areas for improvement. The DRP should be updated based on these insights and regularly tested. It also identifies training needs for personnel, providing both specialised and general cyber security training to strengthen key roles for future incidents.
Partnering with an MSP to Enhance Your DRP
Partnering with a Managed Service Provider (MSP) is an effective way to build a reliable and tailored DRP that meets your business needs. An MSP collaborates with you to identify critical systems and data, ensuring they are prioritised in recovery efforts. They design and implement customised backup solutions, regularly test your plan to confirm its effectiveness, and adapt it as your business evolves. By leveraging their expertise, an MSP can address potential vulnerabilities, optimise recovery processes, and ensure your DRP is ready to handle future challenges with confidence.
How We Can Help
At Insource IT, we’re dedicated to helping businesses strengthen their DRP with advanced technology, proactive solutions, and improved cyber resilience. Our ISO27001 certification reflects our commitment to the highest standards in information security, cyber security, and privacy protection. Whether you’re looking to enhance your DRP or need expert support with managed IT and cyber security services in Perth, we’re here to guide you every step of the way.
Ready to upgrade your cyber defences? Contact our team of experts at (08) 6214 0456 or info@insourceit.com.