On the heels of a major wave of ransomware activity in late 2019, this week healthcare organizations find themselves further challenged by the threat of state-sponsored cyberattacks on critical U.S. infrastructure. Vulnerability assessment, incident response, disaster recovery, and business continuity planning are all naturally very much top of mind, and all are indeed important considerations at this time.
Clearwater encourages healthcare organizations to also consider the importance of Business Impact Analysis (BIA), an often overlooked component to ensuring resiliency. A BIA is a systematic process to determine and evaluate the potential effects of an interruption to critical business operations due to an attack, disaster, accident or other emergency. The goal of a BIA is to identify information assets and prioritize them in order of criticality which can be used to determine the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and the Recovery Point Objective (RPO).
The information that you gather as part of the BIA is critical to the creation of an effective disaster recovery plan including helping you determine what kind of recovery site you need – warm, hot, cold – what kind of skills and resources you need to have, and what kind of budget you need to allocate for disaster recovery and business continuity.
By identifying and prioritizing the organization’s information assets, the BIA also serves a strong foundation for risk analysis and ongoing risk management.
To learn more about how a BIA can benefit your organization, review the recent Clearwater webinar The Value of a Business Impact Analysis.
Resources You Might Like
- January 6: DHS CISA AA20-006A: Potential for Iranian Cyber Response to U.S. Military Strike in Baghdad.
- Latest insights from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
- Health Industry Cybersecurity Practices (HICP): Managing Threats and Protecting Patients publication
Visit www.clearwatercompliance.com for other helpful Cyber Risk Management resources and contact us at info@clearwatercompliance.com with your questions and concerns.
