Could Your Business Recover from a Cyberattack?

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and much of the conversation naturally focuses on preventing cyberattacks. Strong passwords, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), endpoint security, patching, and employee training are all important.

But there is another question every organization should be asking:

If a cyberattack succeeded tomorrow, how quickly could your business recover?

For organizations relying on Tribute.com’s TrulinX software, a cybersecurity incident could potentially interrupt access to applications, databases, files, email, and other systems employees depend on every day.

That’s why cybersecurity planning can’t focus exclusively on prevention.

Organizations should also have a documented strategy for Prepare, Protect, Recover, and Test. This four-part framework can help determine whether your business is truly prepared to recover from a serious cybersecurity incident.

1. Prepare: Know What Needs to Be Recovered

Before you can create an effective recovery strategy, you need to identify which systems are critical to business operations.

Start with a simple question:

If our technology went offline at 9:00 tomorrow morning, which systems would we need back first?

For an organization using TrulinX, that list may include:

• TrulinX application servers
• SQL databases
• File servers
• Microsoft 365
• Microsoft Azure resources
• Network infrastructure
• Remote-access systems
• Employee workstations
• Third-party integrations

Then establish priorities.

Not every system necessarily needs to be recovered at the same time. Understanding which applications are most critical helps your IT team build a recovery sequence around actual business requirements.

Your plan should also identify who makes decisions during an incident, who communicates with employees, and who coordinates with outside technology and cybersecurity partners.

2. Protect: Build Backups That Can Survive an Attack

Backups are one of your most important recovery tools, but simply having a backup isn’t enough.

Cybercriminals may attempt to damage, encrypt, or delete backups to make recovery more difficult.

A modern backup strategy should consider:

• Multiple backup copies
• Offsite storage
• Restricted backup access
• Encryption
• Backup monitoring
• Multiple recovery points
• Immutable backups where appropriate

Organizations should also ensure that backup credentials are appropriately protected and aren’t unnecessarily shared with other administrative systems.

The objective is to create separation between production systems and the backups you may need to recover them.

Think about it this way:

If an attacker gains administrative access to your network, can that same account delete your backups?

If the answer is yes, your backup architecture deserves a closer look.

3. Recover: Define Your RTO and RPO

Two numbers are particularly important when developing a recovery plan.

Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

Your RTO defines how quickly a system needs to be restored.

For example, leadership might determine that TrulinX needs to be operational within 4 hours of a major disruption.

Recovery Point Objective (RPO)

Your RPO defines how much recent data the organization can afford to lose.

If your RPO is 1 hour, your backup and replication strategy needs to support that requirement.

These aren’t just IT numbers.

Leadership should participate in defining them because they reflect business priorities.

Consider an organization where 50 employees depend on TrulinX. If those employees are unable to work effectively for eight hours, that’s potentially 400 hours of affected employee productivity.

Knowing the acceptable recovery window helps determine the technology and investment required to support the business.

4. Test: Don’t Wait for an Attack to Find Out Whether Recovery Works

A backup report that says “successful” does not prove your business can recover.

Backups need to be tested.

Organizations should periodically conduct recovery exercises that evaluate areas such as:

1. Can the required data be restored?
2. Can TrulinX and supporting systems start successfully?
3. Can employees authenticate?
4. Do integrations still function?
5. Can remote employees connect?
6. Does the recovery process meet the defined RTO and RPO?
7. Does everyone know their role?

Testing can uncover missing data, outdated procedures, authentication problems, configuration issues, or unrealistic recovery expectations.

Cybersecurity Awareness Month is an excellent time to schedule a recovery exercise rather than waiting for a real emergency to test your plan.

Don’t Forget the Incident Response Plan

Technical recovery is only one part of responding to a cyberattack.

Your organization should also maintain a documented incident response plan.

It should identify:

• Who declares an incident
• Who isolates affected systems
• Who contacts leadership
• Who communicates with employees
• Who coordinates with cybersecurity specialists
• Who contacts vendors
• How evidence is preserved
• How recovery decisions are made

Depending on the incident and your organization’s obligations, legal counsel, cyber insurance providers, law enforcement, or other parties may also need to become involved.

The time to determine these responsibilities is before an attack occurs.

A 7-Question Cyber Recovery Test

For Cybersecurity Awareness Month, ask your IT team or managed service provider:

1. What systems would we recover first after a cyberattack?

2. What are our RTO and RPO for TrulinX?

3. Are our critical backups protected from modification or deletion?

4. When did we last successfully restore TrulinX from backup?

5. How long did the recovery test actually take?

6. Do we have a documented incident response plan?

7. Does everyone know who is responsible during an incident?

If several answers are “we don’t know,” your organization has identified an important Cybersecurity Awareness Month project.

Make Cybersecurity Awareness Month About Resilience

Preventing attacks is important. Preparing to recover from one is equally important.

CTG helps organizations nationwide protect the technology infrastructure surrounding TrulinX through cybersecurity assessments, Microsoft Azure, backup and disaster recovery, business continuity planning, proactive monitoring, and fixed-fee managed IT services.

We can help evaluate your current backup and recovery strategy, identify potential gaps, establish realistic recovery objectives, and build a plan designed to get your business operating again when the unexpected happens.

Don’t wait for a cyberattack to discover whether your recovery plan works. Contact CTG today to discuss a backup, disaster recovery, and cybersecurity readiness assessment.

Call: 330-655-8144
Email: brett.harney@ctgusa.net
Visit: www.ctgusa.net