How to Build a Business Continuity Plan That Protects Against Cyber Threats

May 15, 2025 | Kate Rode

Article Summary

• A Business Continuity Plan is a strategy that helps organizations maintain essential operations during and after a disruptive event, ensuring minimal impact on critical functions.
• Cybersecurity is a crucial part of business continuity planning, as it ensures that your systems, data, and networks are protected from cyber threats while maintaining operational resilience.
• Disaster recovery focuses on restoring IT systems after an event, while business continuity planning involves ensuring the continued operation of all critical business functions, including cybersecurity.
• Ransomware, phishing, insider threats, data breaches, and denial-of-service attacks are critical cyber threats to address when developing a continuity strategy.

The overwhelming presence of cyber threats rises every year, and they grow rapidly in both successful execution and the amount of damage they can cause to the future of the businesses they target.  Business continuity is an organization’s ability to maintain critical functions and minimize disruption in the event of an emergency.  This requires a precise level of planning and the expertise to be able to correctly identify and protect the most crucial systems in the environment, and comes at a staggering price if not executed correctly.  In this post, we’ll explore why cyber threats must be considered a core part of your continuity strategy, walk through a step-by-step approach to building a cyber-resilient plan, and show you how to identify your critical systems, roles, and responsibilities to ensure your business stays protected, no matter what comes your way.

Why Cybersecurity Should Be Central to Business Continuity Planning

When organizations approach continuity planning, they often picture natural disasters, equipment failures, or supply chain disruptions.  While these are highly relevant, it is crucial to consider another unpredictable and highly destructive threat to operations, cybercrime.

Ransomware attacks can freeze entire networks and destroy every single piece of the organization’s most valuable data.  Data breaches can expose all of the most sensitive information of the business’s customers.  This threat can be just as disruptive as power outages or hurricanes, and they are targeted, relentless, and constantly evolving, making them a priority in business continuity planning.

Key Cyber Threats That Should Influence Your Continuity Strategy

Building an effective continuity plan requires a clear understanding of the cyber threats that could disrupt your operations.  They are not all created equal, some aim to cause disruptions and chaos, some choose to steal data or hold it ransom with the faint notion it may be recoverable, at a cost.  Here are the most critical cyber threats that can be identified while shaping a continuity plan:

Ransomware Attacks

Ransomware is one of the most disruptive threats to businesses of all sizes. It encrypts your systems and data, holding them hostage until a ransom is paid, often in cryptocurrency.

Continuity Impact:

• Halts operations entirely.
• Prevents access to mission-critical systems.
• It can affect backups if they aren’t isolated or properly secured.
• Potential for permanent data loss or exposure.

Continuity Strategy Considerations:

• Offline, immutable backups.
• Isolated recovery environments.
• Ransomware-specific incident response protocols.

Phishing and Social Engineering

Phishing remains the most common initial attack vector. These attacks trick users into clicking malicious links, downloading malware, or giving up credentials.

Continuity Impact:

• Can lead to unauthorized access to systems.
• Often, a gateway to larger attacks like ransomware or data exfiltration.
• Slows productivity and compromises internal communication during a crisis.

Continuity Strategy Considerations:

• User awareness training.
• Multi-factor authentication (MFA).
• Email filtering and zero-trust access models.

Inside Threats

Not all cyber incidents come from external actors. Whether malicious or accidental, employees can pose a significant risk by mishandling sensitive data, clicking unsafe links, or even leaking information intentionally.

Continuity Impact:

• Data corruption or deletion.
• System misconfigurations.
• Loss of trust or intellectual property.

Continuity Strategy Considerations:

• Least-privilege access models.
• Audit trails and user activity monitoring.
• Insider threat response protocols.

Emerging Threats: AI-Powered Attacks and Deepfakes

Cybercriminals are leveraging artificial intelligence to create more sophisticated attacks, from convincingly faked emails to AI-driven malware that adapts in real-time. Deepfakes can also impersonate executives in voice or video calls.

Continuity Impact:

• Greater chance of social engineering success.
• Potential internal confusion or misdirection.
• More difficult threat detection and response.

Continuity Strategy Considerations:

• Enhanced user verification protocols.
• Deepfake awareness training.
• Behavioral analytics.

Additional information on key cyber threats can be found on the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency website.

Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Cyber-Resilient Business Continuity Plan

Creating a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) that is truly cyber-resilient means more than having a backup and hoping for the best. It requires thoughtful planning, cross-functional coordination, and a clear understanding of your organization’s vulnerabilities, priorities, and response capabilities.

Here’s a step-by-step approach to help you build a continuity plan that not only addresses traditional disruptions but is built to withstand today’s most dangerous cyber threats.

Step 1: Conduct a Cyber-Focused Risk Assessment

Start by identifying potential cyber threats and evaluating how they could impact your operations. This goes beyond standard business risk assessments and zeroes in on digital vulnerabilities.

Key actions:

• Perform a cybersecurity risk assessment.
• Identify high-value assets and potential attack vectors.
• Evaluate internal and external risks (e.g., phishing, ransomware, vendor compromise).
• Assess business impact in terms of downtime, financial loss, compliance issues, and reputation.
• This step is the foundation of cyber risk management and informs every part of your plan moving forward.

Step 2: Identify Critical Systems, Processes, and Data

Not all systems are created equal. Determine which parts of your organization must stay operational to avoid significant disruption. This is where critical infrastructure protection comes into play.

Key actions:

• Conduct a Business Impact Analysis (BIA)
• Map out dependencies between systems and departments.
• Prioritize applications, services, and data based on business value.
• Identify Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs), Acronis breaks down the differences
• This helps ensure that in the event of a cyber incident, you know what needs to be recovered—and how quickly.

Step 3: Define Response and Recovery Strategies

Once you’ve identified what’s most important, develop tailored strategies to protect, respond to, and recover from cyber incidents.

Key actions:

• Develop incident response procedures for common threats (ransomware, phishing, insider threats).
• Define specific disaster recovery strategies for your most critical assets.
• Include steps for containment, communication, and escalation.
• Plan for the secure restoration of data and systems.

Your strategies should blend cybersecurity protocols with business operations, bridging the gap between IT and leadership.

Step 4: Establish Roles and Responsibilities

Clarity is everything during a crisis. Define who does what before disaster strikes.

Key actions:

• Assign responsibilities to individuals or teams (IT, legal, communications, leadership).
• Designate incident response leaders and decision-makers.
• Document reporting chains and escalation paths.
• Ensure everyone understands their roles in both technical and non-technical functions.
• When everyone knows their job during a cyber event, the response is faster, more efficient, and less prone to confusion.

Step 5: Develop and Document Your Business Continuity Plan

Now, put it all together into a formal document that can be shared, tested, and updated.

Key actions:

• Document your findings, strategies, contacts, and response procedures.
• Make the plan accessible to key personnel across the departments.
• Ensure technical and non-technical audiences can understand and act on it.
• Include communication templates, resource checklists, and escalation charts.
• This is your playbook—make it clear, concise, and adaptable.

Step 6: Train Staff and Build a Cyber-Aware Culture

Even the best plan fails without a prepared team. Education and awareness are key components of a cyber-resilient organization.

Key actions:

• Conduct regular cybersecurity awareness training.
• Walk through your continuity plan with key stakeholders.
• Include real-life examples or past incidents in training scenarios.
• Make cybersecurity a shared responsibility across departments.
• This empowers employees to recognize threats and act quickly when something doesn’t look right.

Regular Testing and Updating of Your Plan

Now that a plan has been constructed, it is not a “set it and forget it” document, it’s a living strategy that must evolve in step with your business, your infrastructure, and the rapidly shifting threat landscape.  Regulate testing and updates are required to ensure that even the best-laid plans will not fail when everything goes wrong.

Key Objectives of Continuity Plan Testing

When done effectively, testing allows your organization to:

• Validate your response and recovery strategies.
• Uncover hidden weaknesses or overlooked systems.
• Ensure team readiness and coordination under pressure.
• Build confidence across departments.
• Comply with industry standards and regulatory requirements.

Regular testing is both a proactive defense measure and a form of organizational training—it prepares your team for the real thing.

Types of Continuity and Cyber Incident Testing

Not all testing is equal. Varying the format and complexity of your tests helps ensure comprehensive preparedness.

• Tabletop Exercises

Simulated discussions that walk through scenarios without interrupting operations. Great for leadership and cross-functional coordination.

Example: “A ransomware attack locks your finance server. What happens next?”.

• Walkthroughs and Workshops

Guided reviews of the BCP with relevant stakeholders to ensure everyone understands their roles.

Ideal for onboarding new personnel or reviewing major plan revisions.

• Functional Tests

Tests specific parts of your plan—like restoring a backup or failover to a secondary server—without full-scale disruption.

Example: Restore a critical database from backup and verify data integrity.

• Full-Scale Simulations or Drills

Live tests that mimic real-world conditions as closely as possible. These are more disruptive but highly valuable for mature continuity programs.

Include technical teams, comms, HR, legal, and vendors where applicable.

Best Practices for Testing

• Test at least annually—or more frequently if your environment changes rapidly.
• Rotate scenarios to simulate a range of threats: ransomware, insider attacks, data breaches, and service outages.
• Include third-party vendors and external partners in your testing when possible.
• Time and document every test, noting what worked, what didn’t, and where the plan needs improvement.
• Create a feedback loop so lessons learned inform your next round of updates.

Conclusion

A business continuity plan that doesn’t account for cybersecurity is like a fire drill without an escape route. Whether it’s ransomware, phishing, insider threats, or supply chain attacks, the ability to respond quickly and recover confidently is what sets resilient businesses apart.

Building a cyber-resilient continuity strategy means understanding your vulnerabilities, prioritizing your most critical systems, training your teams, and continuously testing your plan against real-world scenarios. It’s not a one-time project—it’s an ongoing commitment to protecting your people, your data, and your future.
At Layer8 Consulting, we help organizations like yours bridge the gap between cybersecurity and business continuity. Our team of experts can work with you to assess your risks, define your priorities, and develop a tailored continuity and incident response strategy that ensures you’re ready for whatever comes next. Contact us today!