The policy on backup techniques and offsite storage is one thing I picked up from this guideline. The frequency and breadth of the backups are based on the data’s criticality and how frequently it is changed. Commercial data storage facilities are components that are especially made to archive media and safeguard data. The geographic region, accessibility, security, environment, and cost should all be taken into consideration when determining the location of stored data, file naming conventions, media rotation frequency, and mode of data transfer across different locations.
Hi Frank,
I agree that effective backup procedures and an offsite storage policy are essential elements of a contingency plan. To avoid data loss in the case of a disaster, it’s crucial to frequently back up key data and store it in a safe, offsite location. Also, the significance and frequency of data changes should be taken into account while determining the frequency and breadth of backups.
I agree with you establishing a reliable backup strategy is essential for protecting an organizations data asset in the event of disasters, data loss, data corruption, human error, or cyberattacks. However, i read an article about a service known as Baas: Back up as a service is a backup solution that allows you to automatically configure and store all your backups in the cloud. Such a service provides assurance that your backup is made virtually without issue, and in the rare instance that there is one, you’ll immediately be notified without having to set up monitoring.
The special publication 800-34r1 describes seven steps to develop and maintain an effective information system contingency plan. While all the seven steps are important, the second step regarding the business impact analysis (BIA) is the key step. The purpose of the BIA is to correlate the system with the critical mission/business processes and services provided, and based on that information, characterize the consequences of a disruption. The BIA results are used to determine contingency planning requirements and priorities.
Three steps are typically involved in accomplishing the BIA:
1. Determine mission/business processes and recovery criticality long with outage impacts and estimated downtime.
2. Identify resource requirements to resume mission/ business processes and related interdependencies as quickly as possible.
3. Identify recovery priorities for system resources.
NIST special publication 800-34r1 very well describes the Contingency Planning and Resilience. An organization must be resilient to withstand gradual or sudden changes to the environment and sustain its mission. Resilience is the ability to quickly adapt and recover from disruptions to mission essential functions. Organizations can achieve resilience through risk management, contingency, and continuity planning. Contingency planning involves developing policies and conducting a business impact analysis to prioritize systems and processes for recovery strategies. FIPS 199 provides guidelines for determining the impact of information and information systems on organizational operations and assets.
Hi Aayush,
I agree with your view. To maintain operations and secure assets, companies must be able to quickly react to and recover from disruptions to their mission-critical functions. Resilience is achieved through risk management, continuity planning, and contingency planning. To make sure they are ready for sudden disruptions, organizations should evaluate potential risks and create backup plans for various scenarios. It’s crucial to prioritize recovery measures for crucial systems and processes by conducting a business impact analysis.
Hi Ayush ,
I agree with you an organization must be resilient to withstand gradual or sudden changes to the environment. In addition to that contingency planning & resilience analysis covers the processes and systems put in place by an organization to ensure that it is either able to maintain the services delivered by its assets despite serious events, incidents or disasters, or is able to recover these services within an acceptable period.
NIST SP 800-34r1 provides a comprehensive framework for contingency planning for federal information systems, emphasizing the importance of proactive risk management and effective planning to ensure the continuity of critical operations in the face of unexpected disruptions.
Key takeaway is that the testing should address various areas, including notification procedures, system recovery on alternate platforms, internal and external connectivity, system performance using alternate equipment, and restoration of normal operations. A test plan should be developed by the Information System Contingency Plan (ISCP) Coordinator to examine the selected element(s) against explicit test objectives and success criteria. This enables the assessment of the effectiveness of each system element and the overall plan.
The test plan should include a schedule, scope, scenario, and logistics. The chosen scenario should mimic reality as closely as possible, and the test should be designed to achieve specific objectives and success criteria. Contingency plan testing is essential for identifying deficiencies and ensuring the overall effectiveness of contingency plans.
Standard elements of a COOP plan include:
-Program plans and procedures
-Continuity communications
-Risk management
-Vital records management
-Budgeting and acquisition of resources
-Human capital
-Essential functions
-Test, training, and exercise
-Order of succession
-Devolution
-Delegation of authority
A key takeaway from the reading is that there are seven steps in the Information system contingency planning process. The steps are developing the contingency planning policy, conduct the business impact analysis, identify preventive controls, create contingency strategies, develop an information system contingency plan, ensure plan testing, training, and exercises, and ensure plan maintenance.
Contingency planning can be time-consuming and put constraints on company finances. However, it provides safety which is paramount to the existence of every enterprise.
NIST SP 800-34r1 provides instructions, suggestions, and considerations for guidance on information system contingency planning. This provides a list of additional emergency plans in addition to the well-known Business Continuity Plan and Disaster Recovery Plan. The document goes over the Occupant Emergency Plan, which is intended to limit harm to people and property when faced with physical threats like fires or gunshots, as well as the Crisis Communications Plan, which is intended to control information flow and prevent misinformation during crises. The table highlights the need for businesses to create contingency plans that are adapted to particular threats in order to maintain key company operations. This demonstrates that there are various kinds of contingency plans, each with its own special function, and that the creation of an organization’s overall contingency plan should be taken into consideration.
These additional plans emphasize the need for organizations to adapt their contingency plans to address specific threats and vulnerabilities. By considering the various types of contingency plans and their unique capabilities, organizations can develop a holistic approach to maintaining business continuity during emergencies.
Business continuity management runs through all parts of the information security knowledge system and is an essential guarantee for availability. The steps to develop and maintain an information system contingency plan include Developing the contingency planning policy; Conducting the business impact analysis (BIA); Identifying preventive controls; Creating contingency strategies; Developing an information system contingency plan; Ensuring plan testing, training, and exercises; Ensure plan maintenance. One takeaway is the testing part. Testing should be conducted in an environment very similar to the operational environment to ensure the effectiveness of the plan. This includes testing individual components of the information system to verify the overall operability of its recovery procedures and plans. The ultimate goal of testing is to ensure that contingency plans are effective and can be relied upon in the event of a disruption and enable plan deficiencies to be identified and addressed by validating one or more of the system components and the operability of the plan.
The seven step contingency plan
1. Develop the Contingency planning policy statement
2. conduct the business impact analysis (BIA)
3. identify preventative controls
4. create contingency strategies
5. develop an information system continency plan
6. ensure plan testing, training, and exercises
7. ensure plan maintenance
NIST SP 800 34r1 discusses how organizations should develop, plan, and implement contingency plans for information systems aimed at maintaining and restoring critical system services after an emergency. A disaster recovery plan (DRP) is a documented, structured approach that contains strategies to minimize the impact of a disaster so that an organization can continue operations. Typical steps in a DRP plan include: Data gathering; Business impact analysis; Risk analysis; Recovery strategies; Build DRP plan; Test and validate DRP plans; Establish plan maintenance; Audit and update plans
The BIA is a key step in contingency plan. It should be performed during the initiation phase of the SDLC. As the system design evolves and components change, the BIA may need to be conducted again.
It is important that we understand system development life cycle because we want to plan in solid way where we have our priorities and organization set up. There should be some sort of strategy involved plans, what measures to take for recovery, and what happens to data after disruption. We want to able to talk about different technologies and given capabilities to design and configure the plan going forward. This plan should include common platform types such as clients/server systems, telecommunication systems and mainframe systems. There should different plans according to what type of situation such as CIP plan which provides policies and procedure of national critical infrastructure.
A key takeaway from the reading is that the special publication 800-34r1 consists of a seven-step contingency planning process. The steps are as follows:
1. Develop the contingency planning policy statement. A formal policy provides the authority
and guidance necessary to develop an effective contingency plan
2. Conduct the business impact analysis (BIA). The BIA helps identify and prioritize information
systems and components critical to supporting the organization’s mission/business processes. A
template for developing the BIA is provided to assist the user.
3. Identify preventive controls. Measures taken to reduce the effects of system disruptions can
increase system availability and reduce contingency life cycle costs.
4. Create contingency strategies. Thorough recovery strategies ensure that the system may be
recovered quickly and effectively following a disruption.
5. Develop an information system contingency plan. The contingency plan should contain
detailed guidance and procedures for restoring a damaged system unique to the system’s security
impact level and recovery requirements.
6. Ensure plan testing, training, and exercises. Testing validates recovery capabilities, whereas
training prepares recovery personnel for plan activation and exercising the plan identifies
planning gaps; combined, the activities improve plan effectiveness and overall organization
preparedness.
7. Ensure plan maintenance. The plan should be a living document that is updated regularly to
remain current with system enhancements and organizational changes.
Downtime is the period in which a system becomes unavailable for a specified amount of time due to events such as maintenance, updates, and unexpected outages. The NIST Special Publication 800-34 Rev. 1 identifies downtime in three (3) ways: RPO, MTD, and RTO.
Recovery Point Objective (RPO) means the “point in time prior to a disruption or system outage to which mission/business process data can be recovered (given the most recent backup copy of the data) after an outage”.
Maximum Tolerable Downtime (MTD) -constitutes “the total amount of time the system owner/authorizing official is willing to accept for a business process outage”.
Recovery Time Objective (RTO) – refers to the “maximum amount of time that a system resource can remain unavailable before there is an unacceptable impact on other system resources”.
NIST SP 800 34r1 emphasized the importance of testing. Testing is a critical element of a viable contingency capability. Testing enables plan deficiencies to be identified and addressed by validating one or more of the system components and the operability of the plan. Testing can take on several forms and accomplish several objectives but should be conducted in as close to an operating environment as possible. Each information system component should be tested to confirm the accuracy of individual recovery procedures.
The following areas should be addressed in a contingency plan test, as applicable:
Notification procedures.
System recovery on an alternate platform from backup media.
Internal and external connectivity.
System performance using alternate equipment.
Restoration of normal operations.
You raise very great points. Testing is very crucial, because it helps organizations to determine whether their program is working properly or it should be re-evaluated.
NIST SP800-34 outlines the fundamental components and procedures of an information system emergency response plan, focuses on how different types of information systems are affected by emergency response plans, and offers concrete examples to help users create their own emergency response plans for information security. ITL enhances the creation and use of information technology through proof-of-concept experiments, development testing, test techniques, reference data, and technical analysis. ITL’s duties include the creation of technical, physical, administrative, and administrative standards and guidelines that are relevant to federal computer systems in order to offer sensitive information with cost-effective security and privacy protection. IT contingency planning is the dynamic design of a plan for restoring operations, systems, and data following an IT system failure (critical applications or common support systems)
I was surprised to see the multiple types of plans that were outlined in this document. I generally only see three types of plans: Disaster Recovery (DRP) , Business Continuity (BCP), and Incident Response (IR). NIST outlines eight plans for federal systems in this document that cover more than the three common business plans.
– Business Continuity Plan (BCP)- sustaining the business through a disruption
– Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) – focuses on how to restore critical functions at an alternative site (warm site/cold site) for a short time to provide time to rebuild the primary site. These are specifically require for government, businesses normally incorporate these plans in the BCP or DRP.
– Crisis Communications Plan – The outline of how to communicate internally and externally in the event of an incident or outage. This also is often incorporated into the BCP or IR plan in a corporate environment.
– Critical Infrastructure Protection Plan (CIP) – This is a plan specifically for critically vital parts of the national infrastructure that would be devastating if they were to go down. This is a special plan that would be unlikely to have a counterpart in the business world
– Cyber Incident Response Plan – a plan for responding to a cyber security attack or other malicious incident involving information systems. This is often the focus of a business IR plan or can be a part of the BCP.
– Disaster Recovery Plan – A plan to respond to a long term disruption or denial or access to a facility. These are often the result of disasters (hurricane, flood, earthquake) or physical damage (fire, water damage, etc). the NIST definition only addresses disruptions that require relocation.
– Information Systems Contingency Plan (ISCP) – this plan also looks at recovering systems following disruption, but at a lesser level than the DRP. The ISCP can be at the current site or an offsite. In non-federal systems, ISCP and DRP are often combined.
– Occupant Emergency Plan (OEP) – a plan to respond to health and human safety threats. These threats are not commonly directly under IT/IS/InfoSec and would be handled by a different department in a business environment or would be included as a sub-section of the IR plan.
One of the most important plans to include in a business is a disaster recovery plan. In the event of a disaster, every organization must have a disaster recovery plan in place. The Disaster Recovery Plan, as defined by the NIST, is an information system-focused plan designed to restore the operability of a target system, application, or computer facility infrastructure at an alternate site following an emergency. The most important aspects of a disaster recovery are the resources/equipment, recovery time, and who is responsible for ensuring that the actions are carried out in accordance with the plan.
NIST SP 800-34r1, the Contingency Planning Guide for Federal Information Systems, provides guidelines for developing and maintaining contingency plans to ensure the availability and resilience of federal information systems. The guide emphasizes risk assessment, plan development, testing, and maintenance, with a focus on recovering critical system functions in case of disruptions or failures. The recommendations help organizations create effective contingency plans tailored to their unique requirements, promoting the continuity and security of vital information systems.
The policy on backup techniques and offsite storage is one thing I picked up from this guideline. The frequency and breadth of the backups are based on the data’s criticality and how frequently it is changed. Commercial data storage facilities are components that are especially made to archive media and safeguard data. The geographic region, accessibility, security, environment, and cost should all be taken into consideration when determining the location of stored data, file naming conventions, media rotation frequency, and mode of data transfer across different locations.
Hi Frank,
I agree that effective backup procedures and an offsite storage policy are essential elements of a contingency plan. To avoid data loss in the case of a disaster, it’s crucial to frequently back up key data and store it in a safe, offsite location. Also, the significance and frequency of data changes should be taken into account while determining the frequency and breadth of backups.
Hi Frank ,
I agree with you establishing a reliable backup strategy is essential for protecting an organizations data asset in the event of disasters, data loss, data corruption, human error, or cyberattacks. However, i read an article about a service known as Baas: Back up as a service is a backup solution that allows you to automatically configure and store all your backups in the cloud. Such a service provides assurance that your backup is made virtually without issue, and in the rare instance that there is one, you’ll immediately be notified without having to set up monitoring.
The special publication 800-34r1 describes seven steps to develop and maintain an effective information system contingency plan. While all the seven steps are important, the second step regarding the business impact analysis (BIA) is the key step. The purpose of the BIA is to correlate the system with the critical mission/business processes and services provided, and based on that information, characterize the consequences of a disruption. The BIA results are used to determine contingency planning requirements and priorities.
Three steps are typically involved in accomplishing the BIA:
1. Determine mission/business processes and recovery criticality long with outage impacts and estimated downtime.
2. Identify resource requirements to resume mission/ business processes and related interdependencies as quickly as possible.
3. Identify recovery priorities for system resources.
NIST special publication 800-34r1 very well describes the Contingency Planning and Resilience. An organization must be resilient to withstand gradual or sudden changes to the environment and sustain its mission. Resilience is the ability to quickly adapt and recover from disruptions to mission essential functions. Organizations can achieve resilience through risk management, contingency, and continuity planning. Contingency planning involves developing policies and conducting a business impact analysis to prioritize systems and processes for recovery strategies. FIPS 199 provides guidelines for determining the impact of information and information systems on organizational operations and assets.
Hi Aayush,
I agree with your view. To maintain operations and secure assets, companies must be able to quickly react to and recover from disruptions to their mission-critical functions. Resilience is achieved through risk management, continuity planning, and contingency planning. To make sure they are ready for sudden disruptions, organizations should evaluate potential risks and create backup plans for various scenarios. It’s crucial to prioritize recovery measures for crucial systems and processes by conducting a business impact analysis.
Hi Ayush ,
I agree with you an organization must be resilient to withstand gradual or sudden changes to the environment. In addition to that contingency planning & resilience analysis covers the processes and systems put in place by an organization to ensure that it is either able to maintain the services delivered by its assets despite serious events, incidents or disasters, or is able to recover these services within an acceptable period.
NIST SP 800-34r1 provides a comprehensive framework for contingency planning for federal information systems, emphasizing the importance of proactive risk management and effective planning to ensure the continuity of critical operations in the face of unexpected disruptions.
Key takeaway is that the testing should address various areas, including notification procedures, system recovery on alternate platforms, internal and external connectivity, system performance using alternate equipment, and restoration of normal operations. A test plan should be developed by the Information System Contingency Plan (ISCP) Coordinator to examine the selected element(s) against explicit test objectives and success criteria. This enables the assessment of the effectiveness of each system element and the overall plan.
The test plan should include a schedule, scope, scenario, and logistics. The chosen scenario should mimic reality as closely as possible, and the test should be designed to achieve specific objectives and success criteria. Contingency plan testing is essential for identifying deficiencies and ensuring the overall effectiveness of contingency plans.
Standard elements of a COOP plan include:
-Program plans and procedures
-Continuity communications
-Risk management
-Vital records management
-Budgeting and acquisition of resources
-Human capital
-Essential functions
-Test, training, and exercise
-Order of succession
-Devolution
-Delegation of authority
A key takeaway from the reading is that there are seven steps in the Information system contingency planning process. The steps are developing the contingency planning policy, conduct the business impact analysis, identify preventive controls, create contingency strategies, develop an information system contingency plan, ensure plan testing, training, and exercises, and ensure plan maintenance.
Contingency planning can be time-consuming and put constraints on company finances. However, it provides safety which is paramount to the existence of every enterprise.
NIST SP 800-34r1 provides instructions, suggestions, and considerations for guidance on information system contingency planning. This provides a list of additional emergency plans in addition to the well-known Business Continuity Plan and Disaster Recovery Plan. The document goes over the Occupant Emergency Plan, which is intended to limit harm to people and property when faced with physical threats like fires or gunshots, as well as the Crisis Communications Plan, which is intended to control information flow and prevent misinformation during crises. The table highlights the need for businesses to create contingency plans that are adapted to particular threats in order to maintain key company operations. This demonstrates that there are various kinds of contingency plans, each with its own special function, and that the creation of an organization’s overall contingency plan should be taken into consideration.
Hi Pranavi,
These additional plans emphasize the need for organizations to adapt their contingency plans to address specific threats and vulnerabilities. By considering the various types of contingency plans and their unique capabilities, organizations can develop a holistic approach to maintaining business continuity during emergencies.
Business continuity management runs through all parts of the information security knowledge system and is an essential guarantee for availability. The steps to develop and maintain an information system contingency plan include Developing the contingency planning policy; Conducting the business impact analysis (BIA); Identifying preventive controls; Creating contingency strategies; Developing an information system contingency plan; Ensuring plan testing, training, and exercises; Ensure plan maintenance. One takeaway is the testing part. Testing should be conducted in an environment very similar to the operational environment to ensure the effectiveness of the plan. This includes testing individual components of the information system to verify the overall operability of its recovery procedures and plans. The ultimate goal of testing is to ensure that contingency plans are effective and can be relied upon in the event of a disruption and enable plan deficiencies to be identified and addressed by validating one or more of the system components and the operability of the plan.
The seven step contingency plan
1. Develop the Contingency planning policy statement
2. conduct the business impact analysis (BIA)
3. identify preventative controls
4. create contingency strategies
5. develop an information system continency plan
6. ensure plan testing, training, and exercises
7. ensure plan maintenance
NIST SP 800 34r1 discusses how organizations should develop, plan, and implement contingency plans for information systems aimed at maintaining and restoring critical system services after an emergency. A disaster recovery plan (DRP) is a documented, structured approach that contains strategies to minimize the impact of a disaster so that an organization can continue operations. Typical steps in a DRP plan include: Data gathering; Business impact analysis; Risk analysis; Recovery strategies; Build DRP plan; Test and validate DRP plans; Establish plan maintenance; Audit and update plans
The BIA is a key step in contingency plan. It should be performed during the initiation phase of the SDLC. As the system design evolves and components change, the BIA may need to be conducted again.
It is important that we understand system development life cycle because we want to plan in solid way where we have our priorities and organization set up. There should be some sort of strategy involved plans, what measures to take for recovery, and what happens to data after disruption. We want to able to talk about different technologies and given capabilities to design and configure the plan going forward. This plan should include common platform types such as clients/server systems, telecommunication systems and mainframe systems. There should different plans according to what type of situation such as CIP plan which provides policies and procedure of national critical infrastructure.
A key takeaway from the reading is that the special publication 800-34r1 consists of a seven-step contingency planning process. The steps are as follows:
1. Develop the contingency planning policy statement. A formal policy provides the authority
and guidance necessary to develop an effective contingency plan
2. Conduct the business impact analysis (BIA). The BIA helps identify and prioritize information
systems and components critical to supporting the organization’s mission/business processes. A
template for developing the BIA is provided to assist the user.
3. Identify preventive controls. Measures taken to reduce the effects of system disruptions can
increase system availability and reduce contingency life cycle costs.
4. Create contingency strategies. Thorough recovery strategies ensure that the system may be
recovered quickly and effectively following a disruption.
5. Develop an information system contingency plan. The contingency plan should contain
detailed guidance and procedures for restoring a damaged system unique to the system’s security
impact level and recovery requirements.
6. Ensure plan testing, training, and exercises. Testing validates recovery capabilities, whereas
training prepares recovery personnel for plan activation and exercising the plan identifies
planning gaps; combined, the activities improve plan effectiveness and overall organization
preparedness.
7. Ensure plan maintenance. The plan should be a living document that is updated regularly to
remain current with system enhancements and organizational changes.
Downtime is the period in which a system becomes unavailable for a specified amount of time due to events such as maintenance, updates, and unexpected outages. The NIST Special Publication 800-34 Rev. 1 identifies downtime in three (3) ways: RPO, MTD, and RTO.
Recovery Point Objective (RPO) means the “point in time prior to a disruption or system outage to which mission/business process data can be recovered (given the most recent backup copy of the data) after an outage”.
Maximum Tolerable Downtime (MTD) -constitutes “the total amount of time the system owner/authorizing official is willing to accept for a business process outage”.
Recovery Time Objective (RTO) – refers to the “maximum amount of time that a system resource can remain unavailable before there is an unacceptable impact on other system resources”.
NIST SP 800 34r1 emphasized the importance of testing. Testing is a critical element of a viable contingency capability. Testing enables plan deficiencies to be identified and addressed by validating one or more of the system components and the operability of the plan. Testing can take on several forms and accomplish several objectives but should be conducted in as close to an operating environment as possible. Each information system component should be tested to confirm the accuracy of individual recovery procedures.
The following areas should be addressed in a contingency plan test, as applicable:
Notification procedures.
System recovery on an alternate platform from backup media.
Internal and external connectivity.
System performance using alternate equipment.
Restoration of normal operations.
Hello Aba,
You raise very great points. Testing is very crucial, because it helps organizations to determine whether their program is working properly or it should be re-evaluated.
NIST SP800-34 outlines the fundamental components and procedures of an information system emergency response plan, focuses on how different types of information systems are affected by emergency response plans, and offers concrete examples to help users create their own emergency response plans for information security. ITL enhances the creation and use of information technology through proof-of-concept experiments, development testing, test techniques, reference data, and technical analysis. ITL’s duties include the creation of technical, physical, administrative, and administrative standards and guidelines that are relevant to federal computer systems in order to offer sensitive information with cost-effective security and privacy protection. IT contingency planning is the dynamic design of a plan for restoring operations, systems, and data following an IT system failure (critical applications or common support systems)
I was surprised to see the multiple types of plans that were outlined in this document. I generally only see three types of plans: Disaster Recovery (DRP) , Business Continuity (BCP), and Incident Response (IR). NIST outlines eight plans for federal systems in this document that cover more than the three common business plans.
– Business Continuity Plan (BCP)- sustaining the business through a disruption
– Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) – focuses on how to restore critical functions at an alternative site (warm site/cold site) for a short time to provide time to rebuild the primary site. These are specifically require for government, businesses normally incorporate these plans in the BCP or DRP.
– Crisis Communications Plan – The outline of how to communicate internally and externally in the event of an incident or outage. This also is often incorporated into the BCP or IR plan in a corporate environment.
– Critical Infrastructure Protection Plan (CIP) – This is a plan specifically for critically vital parts of the national infrastructure that would be devastating if they were to go down. This is a special plan that would be unlikely to have a counterpart in the business world
– Cyber Incident Response Plan – a plan for responding to a cyber security attack or other malicious incident involving information systems. This is often the focus of a business IR plan or can be a part of the BCP.
– Disaster Recovery Plan – A plan to respond to a long term disruption or denial or access to a facility. These are often the result of disasters (hurricane, flood, earthquake) or physical damage (fire, water damage, etc). the NIST definition only addresses disruptions that require relocation.
– Information Systems Contingency Plan (ISCP) – this plan also looks at recovering systems following disruption, but at a lesser level than the DRP. The ISCP can be at the current site or an offsite. In non-federal systems, ISCP and DRP are often combined.
– Occupant Emergency Plan (OEP) – a plan to respond to health and human safety threats. These threats are not commonly directly under IT/IS/InfoSec and would be handled by a different department in a business environment or would be included as a sub-section of the IR plan.
One of the most important plans to include in a business is a disaster recovery plan. In the event of a disaster, every organization must have a disaster recovery plan in place. The Disaster Recovery Plan, as defined by the NIST, is an information system-focused plan designed to restore the operability of a target system, application, or computer facility infrastructure at an alternate site following an emergency. The most important aspects of a disaster recovery are the resources/equipment, recovery time, and who is responsible for ensuring that the actions are carried out in accordance with the plan.
NIST SP 800-34r1, the Contingency Planning Guide for Federal Information Systems, provides guidelines for developing and maintaining contingency plans to ensure the availability and resilience of federal information systems. The guide emphasizes risk assessment, plan development, testing, and maintenance, with a focus on recovering critical system functions in case of disruptions or failures. The recommendations help organizations create effective contingency plans tailored to their unique requirements, promoting the continuity and security of vital information systems.