No company is immune to cyber threats. As cyberattacks grow more sophisticated and frequent, particularly with the rapid integration of artificial intelligence in technology, you need to expand your cybersecurity mindset. Straight-up defense is no longer enough. Today, you also need cyber resilience: the ability to protect your operations even when systems are breached.
Embracing this broader concept of cyber resilience can mean the difference between being forced to buckle to bad actors’ crushing demands and being able to carry on – mitigating risks, protecting reputations, and maintaining operations.
Defining Cyber Resilience: Beyond Defense
Although cyber resilience and cybersecurity are related, they’re not the same. While cybersecurity focuses on prevention, cyber resilience emphasizes the ability to withstand, adapt, and recover from cyber incidents. Looking beyond blocking attacks, it ensures your business can continue operating in the face of disruption.
From an executive perspective, cyber resilience translates to having systems in place that can quickly recover after a breach and minimize the damage to your business continuity, reputation, and finances. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), cyber resilience is not just a technological challenge but an organizational and strategic imperative.
In an environment where breaches are less a question of “if” than “when,” cyber resilience is truly a modern business essential.
Get Comfortable with Cyber Resilience
A good way to wrap your head around the concept of resilience is to think about it in terms of data backups and comprehensive business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) plans. A backup system is helpful, but without a clear strategy for restoring operations, your organization may find itself essentially “building the parachute while falling.”
Take, for example, a 2020 ransomware attack on a large healthcare provider in Europe. Despite the provider’s strong firewalls and endpoint security, attackers were able to infiltrate its network through a phishing scheme targeting an untrained employee. Because the organization had a tested resilience strategy, including backup systems and a robust communication plan, they restored operations within 48 hours and prevented data loss.
The executive takeaway is simple: without a plan for recovery, you’re putting your business at risk. A well-developed resilience plan helps both mitigate downtime and also protect your company’s reputation and long-term viability in the market. For practical strategies on strengthening your organization’s posture, see our guide to the updated NIST Cybersecurity Framework.
Assembling Your Cyber Resilience Plan
Developing a cyber resilience plan requires a multi-layered approach. You’ll need to integrate prevention, detection, response, and recovery into one cohesive strategy.
Prevention
Prevention – the foundational strategy that underpins all cybersecurity efforts – is also a fundamental part of cyber resilience. However, it should be seen as the first line of defense, not the only line. Preventative measures like cybersecurity awareness training play a critical role in reducing human error, which is still the leading cause of breaches. Implementing a combination of prevention-focused tools and policies, including multi-factor authentication, Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), and Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) solutions, minimizes risk by ensuring secure access across all devices and networks.
Detection
In the event that prevention fails, rapid detection becomes your next critical factor. Being able to quickly detect a breach, say, within minutes rather than hours or days, keeps minor incidents from turning catastrophic. According to the latest data from Verizon, it takes an average of 207 days for companies to detect a breach – an unacceptable timeframe. Close this gap using real-time monitoring and continuous network analysis tools like advanced Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platforms, intrusion detection systems, and AI-based threat intelligence. You need to identify and respond to threats before they escalate.
Response
If a breach does occur, you need to be prepared with a clearly defined response plan. This includes coordinating with your cyber insurance provider and possibly even engaging a Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) firm. They can help with critical decisions, such as whether to pay a ransom, which must be made swiftly and decisively. Additionally, having your communication plans prepped and ready to inform affected customers, partners, and regulators as soon as possible will support your ability to perform damage control in the event of an incident. According to data from IBM and the Ponemon Institute, companies that respond quickly to a breach can save up to $1.2 million in total cost of recovery.
Recovery
The recovery phase ensures that your business can resume operations as quickly as possible. As PwC’s Digital Trust Insights Report points out, resilience planning not only reduces the financial impact but also reinforces customer trust. A tested BC/DR plan enables you to rapidly restore operations, so you can minimize the financial and reputational fallout.
Here’s an example of how one company successfully navigated a cyberattack. Their story highlights the difference resilience plans can make.
A firm that faced a ransomware attack and data exfiltration was able to recover within 24 hours, thanks in part due to its air-gapped backups. Crucially, the firm’s cloud-based messaging system allowed them to maintain communication with customers, setting clear expectations about potential delays. They quickly identified which data had been exfiltrated and informed affected parties promptly. As a result, their reputation remained intact, and the financial impact was minimal. This demonstrates how a well-planned response and recovery strategy can significantly reduce the fallout of a cyberattack.
Need Perspective? Think About the Financial Impact of Cyber Attacks
Executives in general are no strangers to the significant financial impact that comes with cyber attacks. Unfortunately, it’s not unusual for leadership at mid-market companies to underestimate the cost of downtime and breaches.
The financial toll of a cyber attack can extend far beyond direct remediation costs. These include:
- Loss of productivity: Every minute of downtime translates to lost revenue, and in industries that rely on real-time services, the cost of disruption can be astronomical.
- Customer trust: Delays in communication or order fulfillment can lead to customer churn, further exacerbating revenue loss.
- Reputational damage: If sensitive customer data is leaked, the long-term impact on brand reputation can be irreversible.
- Loss of intellectual property: If critical trade secrets or proprietary data are stolen, the competitive advantage your business holds may be compromised.
Having robust, resilience-centered incident response plans can help you avoid or mitigate these risks. Additionally, following a predetermined, cyber resilience playbook can help you minimize downtime and maintain your operational stability.
For Best Results, Build Cyber Resilience Everywhere
Cyber resilience is not an isolated strategy – it needs to be integrated into your broader business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) plans. At its core, resilience is about ensuring that cybersecurity efforts are aligned with your particular company’s overall risk management and business continuity objectives. Here’s an overview of how you get there.
Map the System
Start by making sure you have a clear understanding of your company’s entire IT landscape. Executives should know where your critical assets are, how data flows within your organization, and where your potential vulnerabilities lie.
Assess the Impact
For each system or process, you need to know how a cyberattack might impact operations. Which areas are mission-critical, and which can tolerate some downtime? Your assessment will inform your Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) for each area of the business.
Align with Business Goals
Cyber resilience should align with your company’s overall strategic objectives. This means prioritizing the security of your most critical systems, the ones that directly impact your business goals. These include systems like your customer data management or supply chain operations. BC/DR and resilience planning should work in tandem to ensure that recovery efforts align with broader business objectives.
Cyber Resilience Is a Business Imperative, Not a Business Impossible
Clearly, cyber resilience has made the leap from “optional” to “strategic necessity.” For mid-market companies, which often have fewer resources and face greater challenges in recovering from attacks, the ability to quickly restore operations can mean the difference between survival and closure.
It’s time to acknowledge that cyber resilience is an investment in the future of your company. By adopting a resilience mindset, you can defend against attacks while also ensuring that your business continues to thrive. Because as cyber threats evolve, so too must your strategies to combat them.
Proactive strategies, rather than reactive measures, are the key to deflecting cyber threats. For C-suite leaders, cyber resilience instills confidence that, regardless of the challenge, your organization is prepared to contain – and able to keep operating through – the chaos of the unexpected. Want to learn more? Join us on Thursday, October 31, 2024, at 1:00 pm ET for “Building Cyber Resilience in the Age of AI-Driven Threats.” This webinar will feature a fireside chat between Michael Messinger, Shermco CIO; Alex Rose, Secureworks Director of Government Partnerships & CTU Threat Research; and Jason Baron, Coretelligent CIO. Reserve your seat today!