Current News
ISO 17799 - disaster recovery - business continuity defined
SO 17799 is often used as a generic term to
describe what are actually two different documents: ISO17799 (also ISO 27002),
which is a set of security controls (a code of practice), and ISO 27001
(formerly BS7799-2), which is a standard 'specification' for an Information
Security Management System (an ISMS).

ISO 17799 establishes guidelines and general
principles for initiating, implementing, maintaining, and improving information
security management in an organization. The objectives outlined provide general
guidance on the commonly accepted goals of information security management.
ISO/IEC 17799:2005 contains best practices of control objectives and controls in
the following areas of information security management:
- security policy;
- organization of information security;
- asset management;
- human resources security;
- physical and environmental security;
- communications and operations management;
- access control;
- information systems acquisition, development and
maintenance;
- information security incident management;
- business continuity management;
- compliance.
The control objectives and controls in ISO/IEC
17799 are intended to be implemented to meet the requirements identified by a
risk assessment. ISO/IEC 17799 is intended as a common basis and practical
guideline for developing organizational security standards and effective
security management practices, and to help build confidence in
inter-organizational activities
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Disaster Planning is Complex
An
increasing number of professionals know that small-scale emergencies can be
contained if staff members are prepared to react quickly. Damage can be limited
even in the face of a large-scale disaster. For example, cultural institutions
in Charleston, South Carolina, formed a consortium that focused on disaster
preparedness several years before they were hit by a hurricane. Many of those
institutions sustained only minor damage because they were able to put their
early warning procedures into operation.
Disaster planning is
complex; the written plan is the result of a wide range of preliminary
activities. The entire process is most efficient if it is formally assigned to
one person who acts as the disaster planner for the institution and is perhaps
assisted by a planning team or committee. The enterprise's director may play
this primary role or may delegate the responsibility, but it is important to
remember that the process must be supported at the highest level of the
organization if it is to be effective. The planner should establish a timetable
for the project and should define the scope and goals of the plan, which will
depend largely on the risks faced by the enterprise.
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Disaster recovery business continuity team leader tasks
The tasks that the leader of a disaster recovery business
continuity project needs to complete are:
- Establish BC program lifecycle processes within your
organization
- Assess business and technology requirements for a BC plan
- Evaluate business continuity risks to your organization
- Identify and select cost-effective BC recovery strategies
- Organize an effective BC team
- Develop a BC plan document
- Coordinate BC plan with external entities
- Develop an effective test plan for testing the BC plan
- Organize and conduct successful BC plan tests
- Establish a process for maintaining the BC plan
- Implement a BC plan change management process
- Understand the main differences between a disaster recovery plan,
emergency response plan, crisis management plan, and business continuity
plan
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Business continuity after a terroist attack or a pandemic
Most aspects of business continuity and disaster recovery planning
apply to terrorist attacks and pandemics just as much as to fires, hurricanes,
floods, earthquakes, and other natural and manmade disasters.
However, there are a number of areas that
need to be re-visited because of the uniqueness of these types of
interruptions.
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Communication - While communication is
important in any disaster recovery scenario, it is particularly critical in
the event of a terrorist attack or a pandemic. Employees and their families
may be personally threatened, and they may be exposed to rumors and panics, it
is particularly important that they receive accurate, up-to-date information
on safety and health issues. Employees also need detailed information on
company policies and procedures for working in the new environment, and open
communication channels to company officials to help resolve personal and
work-related issues in high-stress situations.
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Security and Connectivity - Enterprises
must plan to provide secure and reliable access to corporate networks for
employees who work in their homes, hotels, or other remote locations.
Administrators must have a plan for distributing software to remote computers,
ensuring security on computers outside of the corporate firewall, and
providing backup and data encryption capabilities to mitigate the risk of
mobile devices with sensitive data being lost or stolen.
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Collaboration and Re-Engineered
Processes - Planners and developers must re-engineer business
processes so they can continue without face-to-face interaction between
employees.
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Business continutiy defined

In the simplest of terms,
it is good business for a company to secure its assets. CIO under the direction
of CEOs and enterprise shareholders must be prepared to budget for and secure
the necessary resources to support business continuity.
It is necessary that an appropriate administrative
structure be created to effectively deal with crisis management. This will
ensure that all concerned understand who makes decisions, how the decisions are
implemented, and what the roles and responsibilities of participants are.
Personnel used for crisis management should be assigned to perform these roles
as part of their normal duties and not be expected to perform them on a
voluntary basis. Regardless of the organization - for profit, not for profit,
faith-based, non-governmental - its leadership has a duty to stakeholders to
plan for its survival.


With the explosion of technology into every facet
of the day-to-day business environment there is a need to define an effective
infrastructure to support operating environment; have a strategy for the
deployment and technology; and clearly define responsibilities and
accountabilities for the use and application of technology.
The template comes as both a WORD document
utilizing a CSS style sheet that is easily
modifiable.
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Security Breaches Are a Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Concern
Servers are so compact that they could be removed from the building
in a briefcase. When you consider the magnitude of the IT investment, and the
value of the data and applications that ride on it, you can appreciate the
critical importance of protecting it from unauthorized access. This is especially true after a disaster
- anyone can walk off with you enterprise's key assets.
Server enclosures provide access
control options such as lock-and-key, electronic control, RFID local readers and
access cards.
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Keys can be matched to individual
cabinets, multiple cabinets of a certain type (such as containing networking
equipment, telephone company equipment or servers), or any other combination
desired.
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Electronic control can provide
multiple types of access, such as remote control, timed control, card reader
control or a combination of all of these
methods.
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Diversified access-control
strategies enable you to manage access at the level of function and/or
individual, while a top-level disaster recovery administrator has a master
key.
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Wi-Fi Proves Itself in a Disaster Area
When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the only
communication system that had not broken down was the wireless mesh network
deployed in the downtown area to support surveillance cameras credited with
reducing the citys prestorm violent-crime rate.
Today it still performs police duties, but as the
lone public communications system left in the city, it also carries VoIP traffic
that is the lifeline for many city businesses.
The storm wiped out wireline phone service and
cellular networks, and those that it didn't destroy outright couldn't be kept up
because the city could not get fuel to the backup generators needed to keep the
networks running, Meffert told an audience at a session during Spring VON 2006
this week.
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Email Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Requirements


Disaster
Recovery and Business Continuity for email requires at least six factors to be
included when the plan is created.
They are:
- Emergency backup
for primary mail server
- Ability
to send and receive emails
- View
"some" email history
- Retain
history during the recovery period
- Spam
and virus filtering
- After
the fact synchronization with primary email server
Based on
working with thousands of customers, Janco Associates has developed a Disaster
Recovery and Business Continuity Template that includes everything that you need
to create a custom Disaster Plan.
You can download a
full copy of the table of contents by going to http://www.e-janco.com/Register_drp.asp.
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Disaster plans are not keeping up with increased volumes
Data volumes are expanding rapidly and many Disaster Recovery and Business
Continuity plans are not keeping up. It is estimated that over half of
large US enterprises had 11 terabytes or more of unstructured data - business
documents, virtual machine images, email, media files, etc. - in their
environments, with annual growth rates hovering around 60%. This is compounded
by a 20% or more annual growth rate for transactional data, historically the
bulk of data processing. With remote office staffing levels in decline, IT's
ability to track and secure these growing data sets is in
jeopardy.
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Business Continuity Planning Key to Business Operations
Business Continuity planning is key requirement for
running any modern enterprise that takes its operations and its clients
seriously. With so many potential disasters looming that can befall an
organization at any time, it seems unwise not to take actions to prepare for and
try to prevent the devastating impact of such catastrophes.

There is a multiplicity of benefits in planning for
Business Continuity and disaster planning within
your organization. Not only will your data, hardware, software, etc., be better
protected, but the people that compose your organization will be better
safeguarded should a disaster occur. In addition, employees will be informed and
rehearsed as to what actions to take to immediately start the recovery process
and ensure business continuity if disaster strikes.
Without this type of preparation any unexpected
event can severely disrupt the operation, continuity, and effectiveness of your
business. Disabling events can come in all shapes and varieties. They can vary
from the more common calamities like hard drive corruption, building fires or
flooding to the rarer, yet more severe and often longer lasting disruptions that
can occur on a city-wide or even national basis; events such as disruptions in
transport (oil crises, metro shut-downs, transport worker, strikes, etc.),
infrastructure weakening from terrorist attacks, or even severe loss of staff
due to illness like a pandemic flu. All of these strikes a blow at an
organization's struggle for business continuity.
For smaller companies the impact of even
lesser disasters can hit much harder. For example, unexpected non-availability
of key workers alone could be catastrophic, potentially causing as much
disruption to business continuity as technological hardship, especially if it
occurs during the height of the company's busy season. If only one person is
trained to do particular and/or essential tasks, their unexpected absence can
severely disrupt productivity.
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