Does your company need an emergency IT plan? Absolutely, your company needs an emergency IT plan to protect operations, data, and reputation during unexpected disruptions. Without one, downtime, financial loss, and customer trust erosion can quickly spiral out of control.
Key Reasons for an Emergency IT Plan
- Business Continuity & Resilience
An IT emergency plan ensures that critical systems can be restored quickly after outages, cyberattacks, or natural disasters. This minimizes downtime and keeps essential services running. - Data Protection & Recovery
Companies rely heavily on electronic data. Losing or corrupting that data due to hardware failure, human error, or malware can be catastrophic. A disaster recovery plan outlines backup and restoration strategies to safeguard vital information. - Financial Safeguards
System failures often lead to lost revenue, regulatory fines, and costly recovery efforts. An emergency IT plan reduces these risks by providing clear steps to mitigate financial damage. - Reputation Management
Customers expect reliability. Extended downtime or data breaches can severely damage trust. A well-prepared IT plan demonstrates professionalism and commitment to reliability. - Employee & Customer Safety
Emergency response planning isn’t just about technology—it also ensures safe communication channels and operational continuity during crises. - Regulatory & Compliance Requirements
Many industries require documented disaster recovery and continuity plans. Having one in place helps meet compliance standards and avoid penalties.
Here is a brief outline of what you will need to protect your company and make IT issues less stressful.
Example Emergency Action Plan
- Identify and Confirm Incident
a. **Responsible Party**: All Staff / First Responder
b. Look for signs: locked files, ransom notes, strange file extensions.
c. Do not reboot or modify the infected system.
d. Take photos or screenshots of any ransom message and notify IT. - Isolate Infected Systems
a. **Responsible Party**: IT Staff / Managed Service Provider (MSP)
b. Physically disconnect from the network (unplug Ethernet, disable Wi-Fi).
c. Remove any external USB devices.
d. Avoid interacting further with the system until reviewed. - Notify in Order
a. **Responsible Party**: Incident Coordinator.
b. Notify Incident Coordinator (if not already involved)
c. Notify Practice Owner / Managing Partner (if not already involved)
d. Notify Cyber Insurance Provider
e. Notify Legal Counsel - Secure Evidence and Document
a. **Responsible Party**: IT Staff I Incident Coordinator
b. Record the time of discovery, systems impacted, and affected files.
c. Preserve logs and documentation securely. - Contain and eradicate
a. **Responsible Party** IT Staff / MSP
b. Block malicious IPs and domains.
c. Scan the entire network for additional signs of compromise.
d. Change all affected user credentials and ensure. MFA is enforced across the board.
e. Do not reimage or clean infected machines before forensic capture if needed. - Restore and recover
a. **Responsible Party**: IT Staff / MSP
b. Use verified, clean backups from offline or cloud sources.
c. Patch and update systems before restoring to service.
d. Validate recovery by scanning restored systems and testing functions. - Report and reflection
a. **Responsible Party**: Incident Coordinator / Legal Counsel
b. Report confirmed PII breaches to the Maine AG and affected clients.
c. Conduct lessons-learned session with IT, management, and legal.
d. Update all policies and plans as needed. - Preventing Future Incidents
a. **Responsible Party**: Practice Owner / Office Manager
b. Schedule regular cybersecurity training for staff.
c. Test and audit backups and restoration processes.
d. Ensure system and software updates are applied routinely.
As with any computer article, there are specific definitions that IT uses that you may not know. Here is a list of the most common ones.
- Backup: Backup Software that encrypts machine data and files and sends them to a cloud (someone else’s) server for safe holding and retention. Typical running retention is 30 days. An optional on-site ‘speed vault’ is also used in some instances.
- EDR: Endpoint Detection and Response: Antivirus – AntiSpyWare (Sentinel One)
- MDR: Managed Detection and Response: Software used to ingest log files (footprints) from servers, computers, firewalls, EDR Software, Microsoft 365, and Google Workspace
- SIEM (sim): Security Information and Event Management
- SOAR: Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response
- SOC: Security Operations Center 24/7 (Live people), remote monitoring of MDR Logfile ingestion and activity. Cybersecurity Experts -This is what they do.
- EAP: Emergency Action Plan
- VPN/SSLVPN: A remote access method to connect users securely from outside the server and company network to inside. MFA: Multifactor Authentication EAP: Emergency Action Plan
Need more information?
Contact:
Harbor Digital Systems
info@harbordigitalsystems.com
www.harbordigitalsystems.com
207-517-0147