Emergency Management and Business Continuity

Are you prepared for a response if
a data breach happens at your organization?

A nimble and prepared emergency management program

Over the past few years, the size and magnitude of cyber and non-cyber security breaches have increased. An IBM study concluded that an average data breach costs about 3.52 to 3.79 million US dollars and it keeps rising every year.

Whether hackers took personal information from your corporate server, an insider stole customer information, or information was inadvertently exposed on your company's website, you are probably wondering what to do next.

A day will come when a data breach happens and how your organization responds can determine the severity of the damage to you, your clients, and partners. An emergency management program must be well planned, resourced, cohesive, tested and ready for a data loss event.

Some key objectives include:

Primary

  1. The first objective is to assess the client's overall readiness by looking at their capacity to tactically respond to and manage an incident through Business Continuity Planning (BCP), Emergency Management (EM), Incident Response, and Disaster Recovery processes to appropriately minimize risk and maintain service if critical information is lost or other types of breaches may occur.
  2. The second objective is to examine how the client systematically and strategically manages this important program. Castellan Information Security representatives will speak with key players within the client to obtain information regarding what planning has been put in place, how the client is structured to manage these situations and to obtain an overall assessment of the state of readiness for the client. Key documents such as BCP plans, EM protocols, recommendations from previous exercises, etc. will be collected and reviewed.

Secondary

  1. Assess the status and scope of the organization's EM and BCP Program?
  2. Establish the extent that BIA's are used to guide the EM and BCP Program?
  3. Determine if appropriate roles and responsibilities have been established?
  4. Analyze the client's EM and BCP plans to determine level of suitability and thoroughness?
  5. Assess the incident command, reporting and notification capabilities and readiness?
  6. Are the roles of response, incident management, disaster recovery and continuity planning are identified and ready?
  7. Have Communications and Public affairs been sufficiently involved in the planning process and integrated as a key component?
  8. Is senior management integrated and prepared for their role?
  9. Is a suitable approach to testing and exercising been adopted?
  10. Is the performance of the EM and BCP Program appropriately monitored and actively managed?
  11. Does the organization have the tools, facilities and other resources to support EM and BCP functions?
  12. *Is information security a subject that has appropriate attention within the EM and BCP Program?

Stakeholders we work with from your organization:

It is important to the data gathering process that the appropriate managers and other accountable representatives attend the data gathering meetings to ensure the required information to support an effective analysis is obtained. It is recognized that certain client representatives may have multiple responsibilities and terminology may vary, therefore, it is critical to make prior preparations with the Project Lead during the Introduction meeting to ensure representative with the following accountably attend this meeting:

  • Project Lead
  • Senior Management Representative/s
  • Executive Responsible for Information and/or Corporate Security
  • Chief Security Officer or Manager
  • Manager or employee responsible for EM and BCP
  • Members of response teams
  • Physical Security Officers
  • Executive Responsible for Corporate Services
  • Policy Development
  • Sample of managers
  • Communications / Public Affairs
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