Importance of Contingency Planning in Information Security

By Don Q. Dao - Last Updated on July 12, 2023
Importance of Contingency Planning in Information Security

Information is everything in today’s world.

Learn why you need to have a contingency plan in information security.

In today’s business world, anything can happen, meaning that having a backup plan is very crucial. As Benjamin Franklin had once said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” While having a strong action plan is essential for achieving a goal, it is only half the battle because implementing the plan cannot go as smoothly as one would think. As you may face many obstacles, it’s very important to have a backup or contingency plan. Information security is one aspect of your business that you should not overlook when coming up with contingency plans. A security breach or a power outage can cost companies a lot of money and data and potentially put their employees safety in jeopardy. In a world where data and information is everything, information security contingency plan has become necessary.

So what do when your information system stops working? With a contingency plan, you are prepared for any disaster that may occur that can inhibit your company’s production and jeopardize your data and information. It’s very important to sit down and come up with a information technology disaster recovery plan (IT DRP) as well as a business continuity plan. With these two back up plans, you’ll be able to recover and reroute your data before anything is lost and figure out how your business can still stay productive during the crisis.

Benefits of a Contingency Plan in Information Security

There are a lot of benefits to having a contingency plan in your back pocket. It can help you save money in the long term, minimize disruption and panic, as well as keeping order within the company when such an event occurs.

When a business experiences a security breach or a disruption like a natural disaster or power outage, a contingency plan can help minimize the loss of production and data. With a contingency plan, data can be rerouted and saved in a different location. Some of the recovery methods that you can leverage are hot sites, cold sites, and cloud-based services. It’s important to ensure that you try to implement top security within this backup location in order to replicate normal operations. This means that you’ll likely need to consider implementing encryption to the shared communication lines used for data transmission when you’re using the backup site. By ensuring that these are implementing, you’ll prevent heavy losses due to lack of production and recovery costs.

In a world where competition is fierce, any setback for you is a win for your competitor. If you ever face a disaster and aren’t prepared, your competitors may come in and overtake your position. For example, if you’re sitting in downtime, your clients might get impatient and decide to move to the competition. Small businesses are especially vulnerable to losing clients thus need to prepare for these types of situation. A contingency plan can help ensure that you’ll always be ready to provide for your clients.

In this world of data, it’s very important to always be prepared to keep it safe and ready, meaning that having a contingency plan for information security is a must.

Don Q. Dao | Always striving to learn, Don Dao is driven by new adventures and challenges. His love for media and social interactions has led him to pursue a career in marketing. Over the years, he has developed a broad skill set in all aspects of marketing, specifically in event organization, social media marketing, and content marketing. He enjoys working with passionate people to bring visions to life and inspire the world.

Don Q. Dao | Always striving to learn, Don Dao is driven by new adventures and challenges. His love for media and social interactions has led him to pursue a ca...

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