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Contingency Planning Paper

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Contingency Planning

The Planning Phase of a contingency plan is created to minimize loss and to ensure that a business critical infrastructure can continue normal operations in the event of a disaster. According to The NIST a contingency planning refers to interim measures to recover information system services after a disruption (Swanson et al. 2010, p. ES-1). Prior to creating a plan several question should be address.
Management- Executive Board and Upper Management selects leadership throughout the business to lead the process of developing a Contingency Plan. Out of that management Team a Crisis management Team should be created that includes leaders and experts within the company that will be the first responders incase a Disaster …show more content…

The Business Impact analysis takes the proactive approach of identifying threats before they occur. A BIA extracts the essential services and functions critical to maintaining operation. In an IT environment BIA associates specific system with the critical services that they support. The BIA analyzes each department from top to bottom. A questionnaire maybe distribute to each department asking for their buy in. Top Level management prepares an outline of the data collected. If an event was to occur, resources will be distributed to those units that it feels are critical to the operation to stay afloat
Risk Assessment - The risk assessment is the process of evaluating threats to a business, customers and stakeholders. Threats may range from a high probability to a minimal impact to a business. Such as faulty power grid to a high impact such as a cyber-attack to natural disasters. This step is vital in examining how effective a business continuity plan will succeed if subject to a threat scenario. This analysis will provide feedback or refinement to the …show more content…

Training a staff before an actual incident takes place or before testing began will ensure that all personnel involve in the training know their role and responsibility. Once training and responsibilities have been establish, exercise can be started to test the plan. The following exercise are use in the information systems.
Tabletop Exercise- Table Top exercise is a discussion base exercise where personnel meet in hall or a classroom setting where a facilitator engages with personnel asking question associated with scenarios. The objective is to start a discussion among the coworkers and decision makers. The Table Top exercise does not involve setting up equipment. Table top exercises are ideal for low-impact systems Functional Exercise- A functional exercise prepares personnel to perform their task in simulated environment. Functional exercise are designed to exercise the roles and responsibilities that one may encounter in a live situation. Functional exercises can be as simple as validating a specific feature to as complex as a full-blown exercise. Functional exercises are ideal for moderate to high impact

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