Cyber Resilience: Practical Strategies to Protect and Restart Your Business

Cyber Resilience: Practical Strategies to Protect and Restart Your Business

In today’s environment, experiencing a cyberattack is not a matter of “if” but “when.” Digital resilience comprises the strategies and measures that enable an organization to withstand attacks and quickly recover while minimizing damage. In practice, beyond traditional cybersecurity measures aimed at preventing incidents, companies must prepare to respond and recover in the event of a breach. According to NIST, cyber resilience is defined as “the ability to anticipate, withstand, recover from, and adapt to adverse conditions, attacks, or compromises on IT systems.”

What are the key components of digital resilience? First and foremost, a robust and tested business continuity plan (BCP) is essential. This includes having up‑to‑date, isolated backups of data (for example, offline copies or cloud backups protected by separate credentials) so that if ransomware or other attacks destroy primary data, recovery is possible. A well‑known case study involved a company hit by ransomware that, thanks to immutable off‑site backups, was able to avoid paying a ransom and restore systems within 48 hours, returning almost immediately to operations. This underlines the importance of a “plan B”: backup plus disaster recovery. Having a disaster recovery site or procedures to shift critical services to alternative infrastructures (e.g., cloud) is vital to ensure continuity.

Another essential element is an incident response plan. It is not enough to safeguard data; companies must also know how to manage a crisis immediately. This involves defining who to contact (IT vendors, consultants, law enforcement if necessary), how to communicate the incident (to users, customers, regulators), and how to isolate the affected parts of the network to prevent further spread. Organizations that conduct regular incident simulations (such as ransomware wargames) are much better prepared when a real crisis strikes. They know who does what, thereby reducing panic and mistakes.

Employee training is also a key aspect of resilience. Staff who are aware of threats (such as phishing and social engineering) are less likely to inadvertently trigger an incident and can act as early warning sensors by reporting suspicious activities. Moreover, fostering a culture where reporting potential incidents is seen not as a fault but as a responsibility facilitates a rapid response.

One telling indicator of resilience’s growing importance comes from an IBM report (Cost of a Data Breach) showing that organizations with automated security and well‑practiced response plans incur significantly lower breach costs than those without. For example, quickly identifying a breach is crucial—even though, on average, it still takes around 194 days globally for a breach to be detected. During this long “dwell time,” attackers can inflict extensive damage. Investing in monitoring, anomaly detection, and threat‑hunting teams helps to reduce the dwell time and limit the impact of an attack.

At the same time, regulations and standards are increasingly driving digital resilience. In Europe, for instance, the new Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) requires financial institutions to implement robust ICT resilience measures and regularly test them. This means that banks, insurers, and other critical entities must ensure they can continue operating even under attack—failure to do so results in penalties. Such regulatory frameworks prompt not only regulated companies but all enterprises to take resilience seriously.

A recent concept gaining attention is “harvest now, decrypt later”: some attackers—particularly state‑sponsored groups—may intercept encrypted data today with the intention of decrypting it in the future (for instance, when quantum computing becomes a reality). This scenario teaches us that resilience also means thinking long‑term: protecting data today that might remain sensitive for 10–15 years and updating cryptographic algorithms as new threats emerge (i.e., preparing for post‑quantum cryptography). In essence, it is about anticipating future challenges.

In conclusion, digital resilience is a cornerstone of modern IT strategy. It combines prevention, rapid detection, effective response, and recovery into a continuous cycle of improvement. A resilient company may not be able to prevent every incident, but it will know how to “take the hit” and recover quickly. As one expert put it, “We cannot guarantee that we will never be breached; but we can ensure that an attack does not bring us to our knees.” This difference today separates a minor setback from a business‐crippling catastrophe.

Bibliography:

1. Cybersecurity360 – “Cyber resiliency secondo NIST” (2020).

2. Giornale delle PMI – “Ransomware: riprendersi dall’inevitabile” (2022).

3. Pew Research Center – “Key findings about data privacy” (2023).

4. NIST – “Harvest now, decrypt later” (2022).

5. CheckPoint – “Che cos’è DORA” (2023).