Business Continuity Planning for 2022

As we close out 2021 and start planning for 2022 it is important to reflect on the past year and the challenges we faced. Ready to prepare our plans and our budgets for the year ahead.

Many of you will already have begun to outline plans for 2022, how you see your organisation developing and the areas which will require additional investment, but what considerations have you made towards your business continuity and disaster recovery plans?

Each year brings new challenges to overcome and having explicit plans in place to follow in the event your business becomes the victim of unforeseen circumstances will ensure you are prepared to face them head-on and overcome them whilst minimising damage and disruption to your operations.

There are two key areas to consider when it comes to your business continuity and disaster recovery plans, Software Asset Risk Management and Defending Against Cyber Threats.

Software Asset Risk Management

Setting up Software Escrow Agreements is the best way to begin protecting your software assets from various threats such as vendor failure or breaches of your license agreement. It involves an independent 3rd party holding and testing a copy of your applications source code (and data in the case of hosted applications) to ensure it can be swiftly and accurately redeployed into a working application should a pre-agreed trigger event occur.

SES’s Software Escrow Agreements are designed to be flexible and protect against every eventuality. Whether you have one application or many, they are hosted in the cloud or installed on-premise at your site, we can deliver the right protection to suit your needs.

In creating your Software Escrow protection, it is important to understand the criticality of your application and the impact of no longer being able to access it. Critical applications which are high value, bespoke highly customised or revenue generating are costly to replace in terms of financial cost and time procuring and tailoring a new application to suit your unique requirements. For these applications, SES always recommend performing Validation Testing to ensure that in the event of a release you have the materials and the knowledge to swiftly and accurately redeploy the application, minimising downtime and disruption to your business.

Already have Software Escrow in place with another provider? Our free transfer offer enables you to transfer your existing Escrow portfolio to SES at no additional cost. There are no setup fees and SES will manage the entire process on your behalf.

Defending Against Cyber Threats

From a Cyber Security standpoint, SES recommends beginning by implementing regular Vulnerability Assessments and performing Penetration Testing each year and after each major version change. This will help you identify any weaknesses in your security, threats which already exist in your systems and networks, alongside the paths a malicious individual could take to breach your organisation, enabling you to remediate and patch your vulnerabilities.

Additionally, 2021 saw a rise in Phishing Threats and many of our customers requested phishing assessments as they recognised that in many instances their employees were their first line of defence against incoming threats, yet were ill-equipped to contain potential attacks before they had the chance to take hold. Phishing Assessments provide employees with the knowledge to identify incoming phishing threats and eradicate them before they have the opportunity to cause damage and disruption to the organisation.

Finally, substantial Incident Response Planning will provide you with a comprehensive action plan to follow when a malicious individual can bypass your defences and gain access to your systems and networks, ensuring that you can quickly identify, contain, eradicate and remediate the threat.

The best way to mitigate threats to your business continuity and maximise disaster recovery is to ensure you have an effective strategy in place to neutralise the threat to your business before an event takes place. To further discuss your requirements, please get in touch to speak to one of our specialists.

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