When a widespread or news-making IT outage occurs, it inevitably sparks enterprise-level conversations about the criticality of operational resilience. Such events are a reminder that even the most advanced platforms are not fail-proof, and although they are rare, outages are still possible.
To understand the seriousness of these events, consider the following technical implications:
- Resource Allocation: More than 60% of tech outages result in losses exceeding $100,000, often due to inadequate resource allocation for backup systems and redundancy.
- Incident Recovery: IT outages can cost up to $1 million per hour in losses, primarily due to the complexity of incident recovery and the technical debt from unresolved vulnerabilities.
- Operational Continuity: A staggering 25% of businesses fail to reopen after a major IT disaster, underscoring the need for continuous monitoring, rapid response capabilities, and resilient architectures.
In addition, despite affecting just 1% of systems worldwide, the recent CrowdStrike-Microsoft outage had an estimated financial fallout of more than $5 billion for Fortune 500 companies.
The only way to counter this butterfly effect is to design and maintain systems that are resilient by default. In this blog, we’ll review an eight-pillar approach to ensuring resilience against IT outages and prevent your enterprises from suffering catastrophic losses if one does occur.
Building Resilience
Resilience is anchored in the people, processes, and technology triad. Before creating and adopting a resiliency plan, here’s how organizations can assess their current state:
- Preparedness: How robust are our systems against unexpected failures? Are automated update mechanisms tested rigorously in controlled environments before deployment?
- Business Continuity: Do we have clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and processes for ensuring continuity in the face of disruptions? How often are these processes validated through simulations?
- Risk Assessment: What are our specific risks associated with automated software updates and cloud dependencies? How do we mitigate these risks through controlled rollouts and redundant systems?
- Error Investigation: Do our systems have comprehensive logging and monitoring tools that enable rapid error identification and rectification? How do we ensure accountability in these processes?
- Resource Allocation for Recovery: What technical resources exist for rapid recovery? Do we have scalable infrastructure and disaster recovery plans that can be activated immediately?
- Communication Protocols: How do we communicate with technical stakeholders during a crisis? Are there secure and redundant channels in place to ensure uninterrupted communication?
Persistent’s Eight-Pillar Approach to Cyber Resilience
Cyber resiliency requires a comprehensive, integrated approach spanning governance, technology, and operations. Persistent helps organizations build a cyber-resilience framework, ensuring they are prepared to face and overcome disruptions. We’ve developed an eight-pillar approach to collaborate with enterprises and ensure end-to-end resilience in a coordinated and programmatic format.
1. Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC)
Persistent establishes and maintains a governance framework that supports informed decision-making and risk management by enterprises through:
- Risk Assessments and Audits: Evaluate risks to develop mitigation strategies.
- Compliance Management: Adhere to industry standards and regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, etc.
- Policy Development and Implementation: Craft and enforce security policies that align with business goals.
2. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
Persistent delivers comprehensive disaster recovery and business continuity solutions that ensure critical operations remain uninterrupted, even in the face of major disruptions with:
- Resilient Infrastructure Design: Minimize downtime through redundant and failover systems.
- Automated Disaster Recovery: Implement automated solutions for rapid recovery of systems and data.
- Business Continuity Planning: Develop and test continuity plans to ensure operational resilience.
3. Consulting for Crisis Management
Persistent offers expert consulting services to help organizations prepare for and respond to crises:
- Crisis Response Planning: Detailed response plans tailored to specific threats.
- Real-Time Crisis Management: Guidance and support during active incidents to mitigate impact and ensure recovery.
4. Cyber Fusion Center (Next-Gen SOC)
Our Cyber Fusion Center represents the evolution of the traditional Security Operations Center (SOC), integrating advanced threat detection, intelligence, and response capabilities, such as:
- Threat Intelligence Integration: Leverage global threat intelligence to identify and respond to emerging threats.
- Real-Time Monitoring and Response: 24×7 monitoring of security events with automated response capabilities.
- Advanced Analytics and Machine Learning: Utilize AI and machine learning for threat detection and reducing false positives.
5. Zero Trust-Based Security
Our Zero Trust approach ensures every access request is verified before being granted. We provide:
- Managed EDR: Advanced endpoint detection and response (EDR) to protect against endpoint threats.
- Cloud Security: Comprehensive security for cloud environments, including Secure Service Edge (SSE) for securing network access.
- IAM/PAM Solutions: Implement identity and access management (IAM) and privileged access management (PAM) to control and monitor user access, ensuring that only authorized users can access critical resources.
6. Data Security
We provide end-to-end data security to safeguard sensitive information from unauthorized access and breaches including:
- Encryption: Implement robust encryption protocols for data at rest and in transit.
- Data Loss Prevention (DLP): Prevent the unauthorized sharing of sensitive information across networks.
- Data Classification and Governance: Classify and manage data according to sensitivity and regulatory requirements.
7. Security Assurance (Application Security and VAPT)
Ensuring that applications are secure and free from vulnerabilities is a critical aspect of cyber resiliency. Persistent offers security assurance services, including:
- Application Security Testing: Conducting comprehensive security assessments of applications to identify and remediate vulnerabilities.
- Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT): Simulating cyberattacks to uncover and address potential security gaps before they can be exploited.
8. Security Posture Assessment and Forensic Support
Persistent partners with industry-leading experts to provide comprehensive security posture assessments and forensic support services, including:
- Security Posture Assessment: Evaluating an organization’s current security measures to identify strengths and areas for improvement.
- Forensic Support: Offering forensic analysis services through its different Partners to investigate and understand the root cause of security incidents, enabling organizations to take informed corrective actions.
Achieving Cyber Resiliency with Persistent
Through these integrated cyber resilience offerings, Persistent empowers organizations to continue operations in degraded IT environments while proactively anticipating and mitigating future risks.
Contact us today to learn how we can help your organization thrive in an increasingly complex and interconnected digital landscape that must be secure, protected, and resilient.
