Actions To Strengthen Cyber Recovery and Ensure Mission Continuity
Preparation and readiness: Create a cybersecurity incident response plan that explicitly outlines roles, responsibilities and procedures before a breach. The plan should detail steps for containing and removing threats, followed by a structured recovery process to restore normal operations.
Asset identification and risk scoring: Inventory and categorize all assets, focusing on high-value assets and mission-critical systems. Vulnerabilities are continuously assessed based on exploitability, exposure and potential impact to allocate resources effectively.
Automated asset discovery: Apply automated tools to help keep a real-time list of all networked assets and continuously identify vulnerabilities.
Air-gapped backups: Back up essential data to systems that are physically or logically isolated from the network, ensuring they cannot be compromised or deleted during a networkwide cyberattack.
Immutable backup and storage: Store immutable copies of essential data that cannot be altered or overwritten for a specific duration. This is a core defense against ransomware, which explicitly targets backups.
Regular testing: Regularly test backup solutions and disaster recovery plans, including cyber, to verify that critical data and systems can be restored promptly.
Encryption and network segmentation: Encrypt all data traffic, both internal and external, and enable multifactor authentication. Use microsegmentation to isolate network segments and prevent attackers from moving laterally after a breach.
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