Business continuity awareness module

Business continuity in the title of December's security awareness module refers to the central purpose of various forms of resilience, disaster recovery/business resumption and contingency planning: these are not purely academic approaches but serve to support the business in a very practical way, in times of crisis.

Making processes and systems resilient is an ideal approach to business continuity management if the organization can shrug-off incidents that might otherwise interfere with or stop vital business activities, keeping operations running without a noticeable break.  Disaster recovery and business resumption planning, however, start with the assumption that the business has unfortunately been disrupted as a result of a disaster, for instance if the resilience measures turn out to be inadequate in practice.  Contingency planning takes that line of thinking a step further, preparing the organization to cope with situations that are completely unanticipated.