Ten Steps to Disaster Recovery

Creating a disaster recovery plan is crucial for businesses to ensure continuity and minimize the impact of unforeseen disasters. Here’s a guide in ten steps to develop an effective disaster recovery plan:

1. Identify Critical Assets: Begin by identifying your business’s critical assets, including data, hardware, software, and essential personnel. Understanding what is crucial for your business operations is the first step in effective planning.
2. Conduct a Risk Assessment: Evaluate the risks your business may face, such as natural disasters, cyber-attacks, hardware failures, or power outages. Assess the likelihood of each risk and its potential impact on your operations.
3. Set Recovery Objectives: Define your Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO). RTO is the maximum acceptable time to restore operations after a disaster, while RPO is the maximum age of files that must be recovered from backup storage for normal operations to resume.
4. Develop Recovery Strategies: Based on the identified risks and recovery objectives, develop strategies for restoring hardware, applications, data, and connectivity. This may include off-site backups, cloud storage, and maintaining redundant systems.
5. Plan for Workforce Continuity: Ensure you have a plan for your workforce during a disaster. This can include remote work capabilities, temporary office space, or reallocating responsibilities among available staff.
6. Create an Emergency Response Plan: Develop a plan for the immediate response to a disaster. This should include emergency contacts, first response actions, and procedures for communication with employees, customers, and stakeholders.
7. Document the Disaster Recovery Plan: Write down the plan in a clear, detailed manner. The document should include all strategies, procedures, RTOs, RPOs, and emergency contacts. Make sure it is accessible to all key personnel.
8. Implement Data Backup and Recovery Solutions: Regularly back up critical data using reliable methods. Ensure that backups are stored in a secure, off-site location and test the recovery process to confirm that data can be effectively restored.
9. Train Your Staff: Educate your employees about the disaster recovery plan. Ensure that all staff members understand their roles and responsibilities in the event of a disaster.
10. Regularly Review and Update the Plan: The disaster recovery plan should be a living document. Regularly review and update the plan to accommodate new business processes, technology changes, and emerging threats. Conduct drills and simulations to test the plan and make improvements based on the outcomes.

Implementing a comprehensive disaster recovery plan can help your business quickly recover from disruptive events, minimizing downtime and financial losses.

Info Sec

What is an Information Security Management System and why should I need it?

An Information Security Management System (ISMS) is a systematic approach to managing sensitive company information so that it remains secure. It includes people, processes, and IT systems by applying a risk management process. It can help small, medium, and large businesses in any sector keep information assets secure.

No, really, what is an ISMS?

OK, let’s put it in a simpler way: an ISMS a way to know and control how the company’s data flows, what use your company do of the data, where are the criticalities and what are the risks of having it compromised.

We can think of an ISMS as a comprehensive approach to evaluate all the security risks and the establish practices in order to avoid security incidents in your business.

Here are some key components of an ISMS:

1. Risk Assessment and Management: Identifying and managing risks to the security of information.
2. Security Policies: Establishing policies for handling information securely.
3. Asset Management: Identifying and classifying information assets and defining appropriate protection responsibilities.
4. Human Resource Security: Ensuring that employees understand their responsibilities, including training and managing changes in employment.
5. Physical and Environmental Security: Protecting physical access to information systems and equipment.
6. Communications and Operations Management: Managing technical security controls in systems and networks.
7. Access Control: Restricting access to information to those who need it.
8. Information Systems Acquisition, Development, and Maintenance: Ensuring that information security is a key part of the systems’ lifecycle.
9. Information Security Incident Management: Preparing for and managing information security incidents.
10. Business Continuity Management: Protecting, maintaining, and recovering business-critical processes and systems.
11. Compliance: Ensuring adherence to legal, regulatory, contractual, and business requirements.

Several security frameworks can be used to establish and maintain an ISMS, including:

1. ISO/IEC 27001: This is a global standard for ISMS. It provides a model for establishing, implementing, operating, monitoring, reviewing, maintaining, and improving an Information Security Management System.
2. NIST Cybersecurity Framework: Developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, this framework is used in the United States and provides a policy framework of computer security guidance for how private sector organizations can assess and improve their ability to prevent, detect, and respond to cyber-attacks.
3. CIS Controls: The Center for Internet Security Critical Security Controls are a recommended set of actions for cyber defense that provide specific and actionable ways to stop today’s most pervasive and dangerous attacks.
4. COBIT: Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies is a framework for developing, implementing, monitoring, and improving IT governance and management practices.
5. GDPR: The General Data Protection Regulation is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy in the European Union and the European Economic Area. It also addresses the transfer of personal data outside the EU and EEA areas.
6. PCI DSS: The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard is a set of security standards designed to ensure that all companies that accept, process, store, or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment.

Each of these frameworks has its unique focus and can be chosen based on the specific needs and context of the organization.

Info Sec

ISMS is a foundation for content production and security awareness.

For content production and distribution entities working closely with major platforms, aligning with the TPN MPA guidelines security best practices is crucial. The first step in this process involves establishing an Information Security Management System (ISMS). What is an ISMS?

An Information Security Management System (ISMS) is like a set of rules and practices that a company follows to keep its important information safe. Think of it as a guidebook for protecting all kinds of company data from digital threats like hacking, as well as other risks like employee mistakes or theft.

Imagine a company as a house where important documents are stored. Just like you’d have locks, alarms, and rules about who can enter and what they can do inside your house, an ISMS does the same for a company’s information. It helps decide:

• What information is important and needs to be protected (like the valuable items in a house).
• How to protect this information through things like passwords, encryption (turning data into a secret code), and making sure only the right people can access it (like having locks and security systems in a house).
• What to do if something goes wrong, like if there’s a break-in (hacking) or if someone accidentally shares sensitive information.

So, an ISMS helps a company keep its valuable data safe, manage risks effectively, and ensure everyone knows the rules and procedures for handling important information. In a more structured way, the following are the steps to consider in establishing an ISMS:

1. Foundation of ISMS: Start by adopting a structured security framework that defines how your organization manages and treats information security risks.
   The ISMS should encapsulate all policies, procedures, and processes necessary to manage, monitor, and improve information security.
2. Regular Reviews and Updates: Ensure that your ISMS is not static. Regularly review and update it to reflect changes in your business environment, emerging threats, and technological advancements.
3. Integration and Alignment: Your ISMS should integrate seamlessly with overall business processes and align with industry standards and legal requirements.
4. Comprehensive Scope: Include all aspects of information security in your ISMS – from digital data protection to physical security and employee training. Every facet of your operation that touches confidential information should be considered.
5. Employee Training and Awareness: Educate your team about the importance of information security. Regular training and awareness programs can foster a culture of security and vigilance within your organization.
6. Monitoring and Enforcement: Implement tools and processes to monitor compliance with your ISMS. Regular audits and checks will ensure adherence and highlight areas for improvement.
   By carefully crafting and implementing an ISMS, studios and content distributors not only align with the MPA’s TPN security best practices but also establish a robust foundation for overall information security. This proactive approach is vital in protecting valuable digital assets and maintaining the trust of partners and clients in the highly competitive content production industry.

Info Sec