When failure of critical infrastructure isn’t an option, business continuity planning must take priority

The concept of ‘business continuity’ has moved to the top of the priority list for most leaders in 2023, as they take the necessary steps to ensure operations continue both during and after disruptive and sometimes even disastrous events.  

In April 2022, the Costa Rican government was attacked. All public services were impacted and offline, and a ransom of $10 million was demanded. The country declared a state of emergency.  

This is not an isolated incident. According to Statista, by mid-year 2022, there were already 2.8 billion malware attacks worldwide and counting. Governments, critical infrastructure, and organizations everywhere will continue to face threats. And for those delivering essential services to the population, downtime or failure simply isn’t an option.  

Collaboration and communication must continue despite the attack 

“No one expected the pandemic, but some were better prepared than others when it did happen. Business continuity planning has become as essential as the company strategy or the government’s budget, as we cannot afford downtime or failure of things such as our energy supply, our telecoms, our water, and so on,” says Geir Aasen, Chief Information Security Officer, Pexip.  

When a crisis does hit, it’s important that employees are aware of the business continuity plan in place and the back-up solutions that are available. Ask yourself, how will you communicate with your organization if you’ve had a massive systems failure? Communications is one of the first things you must ensure in the event of a crisis.  

“It’s of course important to think about recovery and back-up, but what about continuing business through the crisis? That means having tools that allow people to talk to each other. This is the essential if you are providing a critical service, such as the power supply, to a country,” adds Aasen. 

Put back-up collaboration tools in place that your people know and trust 

For organizations that can’t afford to go silent, solutions must be put in place that allow you to communicate, meet and collaborate despite the crisis at play. These solutions can range from private networks for chat to self-hosted video solutions.  

“Face-to-face collaboration can be a source of trust and confidence during a disaster, making video that doesn’t rely on a public network a key tool in your business continuity plan,” says Aasen. 

Pexip has experienced a rising interest in self-hosted video solutions that can be turned to in the wake of an incident, as it can be used and hosted from a protected location to ensure that the company’s video technology can be accessed under any circumstances.  

“A crisis is not the time to teach employees about a new tool, however,” adds Aasen. “It’s important that your back-up collaboration tools are tools that employees are already familiar with and able to use immediately. This prevents downtime and enables business to continue, in a comfort zone for your people.” 

Video tech enables damage investigation and root cause analysis 

The use of video in business continuity planning also extends to the area of troubleshooting, maintenance and sometimes even the investigation of the cause of the incident.  

“Imagine a disaster occurs and the cause needs to be understood. Today, we can use wearables powered by video technology to retrieve and relay information between people at a distance, speeding up the process of fixing the issue and getting back to business as usual,” says Aasen. 

Make sure your collaboration tools are crisis-ready 

Hybrid and remote work have changed the game and upped our reliance on collaboration tools, keeping us connected no matter where we are. However, the failure of these steadfast collaboration tools is often an underestimated risk for many organizations.  

“As part of your business continuity planning, it’s important to select right collaboration technology and understand how it works in times of crisis or disaster,” concludes Aasen, “doing so just might save your business.” 

Learn more about our Pexip for Business Continuity