Business Continuity

Disruptions do not wait for a convenient time. A ransomware event, internet outage, cloud service failure, severe weather incident, or vendor issue can stop work fast. When that happens, the organizations that recover best are usually the ones that already know what matters most, who does what, and how they will keep operating. That is the purpose of business continuity planning. A business…

First, the good news: the average global cost of the average data breach dropped in 2024 for the first time in five years. Now the bad news: that cost was still more than $4 million per incident. Clearly, more needs to be done to shore up cybersecurity. And the ISO 20071 security standard can help. Why ISO 27001 Matters for…

Cyber incidents are escalating in frequency, sophistication, and impact, affecting everything from patient safety to city operations. In this environment, incident response can’t be an isolated IT task. It must be a business-wide function rooted in intelligence, resilience, and readiness. That’s precisely what the newly released NIST Special Publication 800-61 Revision 3 aims to accomplish.

In the ever-evolving landscape of cybersecurity, understanding the challenges, solutions, and opportunities is crucial for businesses of all sizes. The ninth edition of the RSM Middle Market Business Index (MMBI) Cybersecurity Report, conducted from January 8 to February 16, 2024, sheds light on the cybersecurity landscape for middle-market companies. Drawing insights from 403 middle-market executives across various industries, the report…

As some workplaces reopen and others make plans to do so, we may start seeing business as usual. However, if the coronavirus re-emerges over the summer or fall due to a decrease in social distancing and other factors, organizations will need to be prepared for a return to remote work and other pandemic-induced workplace changes.

Companies facing a crisis — such as the current COVID-19 pandemic — must identify who will manage the company’s response. In many cases, this involves the creation of a crisis management team, which can help divvy up the many responsibilities. 

Ever since laptops first came on the market there have been challenges reliably backing up the data to protect against loss or failure. The reality today is that laptop backup solutions are still not flawless and shouldn’t be exclusively relied on to limit the risks of data loss or corruption. For example: Manual backup (for example to USB) suffers both…

When preparing your technology budget, it is useful to know the costs associated with downtime. This information can help you prioritize IT expenditures so that critical systems and operations receive the funding needed to keep them running efficiently. Knowing the downtime costs can also motivate you to create business continuity and disaster recovery plans if you have not created them…

Data backups and replication are both related to disaster recovery, but they aren’t the same thing. There are important differences in what they are used for and how they are set up. Only by understanding the differences can you determine whether your business needs just one solution or both of them. Data Backups Data backups involve copying both critical and…

Update your phone number Ensure you can transfer your current phone number(s), local phone service and features, such as voice mail, to your new location. If not, get new ones and arrange for call forwarding for at least 90 days. Ensure you can transfer your local long distance and long-distance services at the same time. This is usually a good…

In our opinion, yes. In addition, cloud services are also the most cost-effective way to protect your business from disaster. When it comes to IT, there are two kinds of risks. One involves system failures, whether they’re caused by hardware, software, human error, or natural disaster. Minimizing these risks is called business continuity planning. The other involves the damage to…

As long as you have a reliable, high-speed internet connection; select a reputable online backup service or managed service provider, that provides online backups for you. Online backups provide: •     Instant offsite electronic data protection: Data is automatically moved offsite to a hardened storage facility (i.e. the facility has redundant internet connections, servers, and power and is constructed…

The worst time to discover that your backup system isn’t working is when you’ve lost key information and need to recover it. Nowadays, there are as many ways to back up your data as there are ways to lose it. Products range from the venerable tape back up to hard drives to online backup services. No matter which product ends…