Agent WranglersOPS-79Recommended
Write a business continuity plan
Write one plan for keeping the business running through a long outage, loss of a key person or loss of a key supplier. Name who decides, how staff and customers hear from you, and the manual workarounds.
How to do it
The technical recovery rules bring systems back. This plan covers the rest. List the business processes in order of how long each can stop, such as taking orders, paying staff and answering customers. For each, write a manual workaround and the person who starts it. Name a deputy for every person whose knowledge or access only they hold, and give the deputy the access now. List suppliers that many processes depend on, such as one cloud or one payment provider. Give each an exit plan, as Keep an exit plan for each platform says. Keep contact lists and the plan printed or in a second system, since the main one may be down. Laws such as NIS2 and DORA ask in-scope firms for this plan.
How to check
The plan is dated within the last 12 months and names a decision maker and a deputy. Every person who alone holds a production access or a supplier contract has a named deputy with tested access. A tabletop exercise in the last 12 months walked through one scenario from the plan.
Sources
- NIST SP 800-34 Rev. 1 Contingency Planning Guide
- ISO 22301:2019 Business continuity management systems
- NIS2 Directive (EU) 2022/2555, Article 21
Related rules
- INF-67 Keep an exit plan for each platform in Infrastructure and environments
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