Your business is unique. Even if you are working in the same field as other businesses—and it is highly likely that you are—something about the way your business works is different. This is often known as your unique selling proposition, or USP.
So that you can bring your USP to market, have you bought or developed customized software, or customized the setup and configuration of your infrastructure?
If so, take a moment to think about how you would restore those systems if you were subject to a cyber attack or some other issue affecting your business continuity.
You probably have backup copies of software, including the customised software, but it would be worth checking that the backups are securely stored, easily and quickly retrievable when needed, and that the reinstallation process is documented.
Have you documented the configuration customisation (whether this is customisation of your software, or of manufacturing hardware, for example), so that you could recreate the setup if need be? This documentation should be clear and complete, and securely stored. In the worst-case scenario, this means that someone new could recreate your setup so you can continue to provide your product or service using your unique selling proposition.
This might seem obvious—even trivial—but we all know that documentation is often deferred ‘until later’ in the press of urgent tasks, and that later sometimes never comes.
If you’d like help to think through business continuity planning or other information security issues, call us on 0113 733 6230 or use our contact form.
