Friday, 28 February 2014

Autumn is coming, are you prepared?

With the Autumn season just a day away we look to changing our wardrobe for some warmer clothing, preparing our home for the relief of rain and looking forward to making it into the garden and seeing what the summer sun has left for you to revive. It’s a chance for us all to take a break from the long and busy summer and nestle down in our homes ready for winter.

But what are the risks involved, initially you might think that there can’t be much, with looking forward to catching up on some of those books on the book shelf you haven’t had time to start, decorating the dining room because the summer was too hot to even think about it or taking up a new hobby if that’s your thing.

The first big downpour of 2014 left my gutters overflowing and my garden turning into a swimming pool, all of which was unexpected. I didn’t know it was going to rain that hard and we had already cleared out the gutters a few weeks before but with those record breaking 40 degree temperatures in Adelaide that had a big effect on the trees around my house and when the wind picked up they shed all their dry leaves back on to my roof and into my gutters, hence them overflowing and my husband getting soaked to his socks clearing them out and hoping he cleared them before the water got into the roof.

We hear it all too often on the radio and the news of people like you and I having their information hacked and money stolen from their bank accounts, and when we find out it’s happening we go into defence mode and change our passwords and have a rant to the bank until its fixed. But what if it’s your workplace and your office holds the information of others or your organisation is closed down for the day what then? It may not be just you who is affected and it doesn’t take long for someone on a laptop sat in their own home to leave you with a wealth of problems which can’t be fixed with a phone call or a password change. The risk of a cyber-attack isn’t your only threat; losing power to your premises for a long period of time can be just as harmful if you become out of contact or are unable to complete your daily tasks.

Having a disaster recovery plan in place can be a challenging and difficult task but in the event of a breach or natural event it could possibly be your only hope of maintaining service and being able to recover as quickly and efficiently as possible.

So what can I do?

For an organisation who have not taken a great deal of time to consider their disaster recovery CQR can assist any business to analyse a business and look at where experiencing a disruptive event can have an effect on a business through a Business Impact Analysis, this will provide a risk register, business continuity and recovery plans and most importantly enable show if the business can recover within a desired timeframe.

We can provide an independent review of your IT Service Recovery Plans through an IT Service Recovery Technical Review, ensuring that the information therein is adequate to support the recovery processes and that staff are aware of their roles and responsibilities.

In having a Vulnerability Assessment completed CQR have specialist consultants who can carry out technical vulnerability scans that will challenge the resiliency of your network architecture. We will provide you with a vulnerability report outlining the risks and provide recommendations to manage the identified vulnerabilities.

In addition to these services CQR can also provide Exercise / Test Facilitation, Document Development, Review of Business Continuity Gap Analysis against ISO 22301:2012 Business Continuity Standard and Business Continuity Management System (BCMS) Development. All of these services are done through partnering with the organisation and developing a scope to ensure that what is delivered is exactly what is needed in order to prevent the worst happening. 

So before the winter arrives I have my own plan in place to make sure that my gutters no longer get clogged with leaves and debris and that I reduce the risk of my garden becoming flooded again, and that will involve my husband getting back up onto the roof again, but hopefully this time he will be dryer.

Sarah Taylor

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