Computer systems and networks are irrevocably woven into the fabric of business practices around the world; we quite literally cannot do without them. What’s more, our lives and our business practices become more dependent on these devices every day. Unfortunately, this makes computer networks the number one criminal playground in the modern world.

Although computer security technology and processes are becoming increasingly effective, cyber-criminals have more than kept pace. Every year the number of computer security compromises is increasing. Cyber-attacks are becoming more sophisticated and can originate from anywhere that has Internet connectivity. It should also be remembered that cyber-criminals only have to be successful in one of their attacks to win, while businesses must successfully defend against every attack, every time to win the game. The upshot of all this is that every business is increasingly liable to experience some kind of cyber-attack. That is the reason why regulators and security professionals have been pushing businesses to increase the scope and effectiveness of their incident response capabilities in recent years.

To help counter modern cyber-incidents effectively, organizations must respond to them quickly and in an accurate, pre-determined manner. IR teams must determine and document specific actions to be taken in the event common information security events occur. Responsibilities for performing these incident response “procedures” should be assigned to specific team members. Once detailed procedures for addressing common security incidents have been completed, the IR team should review them and role play response scenarios on a recurring basis (at least twice annually is recommended). It is an unfortunate truth that incident response is a perishable skill and must be regularly practiced to be effective.

This same advice also applies to business continuity/disaster recovery plans – functionally, they are really the same thing as incident response. Whether your business is facing a flood, a tornado, a cyber-attack or even an employee error, they all have negative effects that can be lessened if you have effective, pre-planned responses in place that everyone involved is familiar with and has practiced regularly. So why not practice IR and BC/DR together? It can minimize the time personnel are away from their regular business duties and maximize the effectiveness of their training.