Digital Operational Resiliency

By: A Staff Writer

Updated on: Apr 11, 2024

Digital Operational Resilience (DOR) refers to an organization’s ability to maintain its core digital services, systems, and processes in the face of adverse events such as cyberattacks, natural disasters, or technological failures. It involves identifying, managing, and mitigating digital infrastructure and assets risks. By building a resilient digital environment, organizations can ensure the continuity and integrity of their operations.

Reasons DOR is Important:

• Growing cyber threats: With the rise in sophisticated cyberattacks, businesses must proactively protect their digital infrastructure, systems, and data from unauthorized access, misuse, or damage.
• Increased reliance on technology: As organizations become more reliant on digital systems and processes, the potential impact of disruptions on their operations and revenues has grown significantly.
• Regulatory compliance: Many industries are subject to regulations and standards that require organizations to maintain a certain level of digital operational resilience, making it crucial for businesses to comply and avoid penalties.
• Competitive advantage: A strong digital operational resilience posture can serve as a competitive differentiator, instilling confidence in customers, partners, and stakeholders about the organization’s ability to maintain operations and recover from adverse events.
• Business continuity: Ensuring the continuity of critical business functions during and after a disruptive event helps organizations minimize financial losses, maintain customer trust, and protect their reputation.

Components of Digital Operational Resiliency:

• Risk assessment involves identifying and analyzing potential risks and vulnerabilities within an organization’s digital infrastructure, systems, and processes.
• Incident response planning involves developing and implementing strategies and protocols for responding to and managing adverse events, such as cyberattacks or technical failures.
• Business continuity planning: Ensuring critical business functions can continue operating during and after a disruptive event.
• Disaster recovery: Establishing processes and procedures to restore normal operations following an adverse event.
• Cybersecurity: Implementing robust security measures to protect digital assets, systems, and data from unauthorized access, misuse, or damage.
• Monitoring and testing: Regularly monitor and test the effectiveness of the organization’s digital operational resiliency measures and make necessary adjustments.
• Training and awareness: Educating employees about the importance of digital operational resiliency and their role in maintaining it.
• Collaboration and information sharing: Collaborating with external partners, such as government agencies, industry groups, and other organizations, to share best practices and improve overall digital operational resiliency.

Business Continuity Planning:

Enterprises can create a robust business continuity plan (BCP) to ensure that critical business functions continue to operate during and after a disruptive event by following these steps:

• Conduct a business impact analysis (BIA): Identify critical business functions and processes, along with the resources required to support them, such as personnel, technology, and facilities. Then, assess the potential impact of disruptions on these functions and determine the maximum tolerable downtime (MTD) for each.
• Identify recovery objectives: Establish recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) for each critical function. RTOs define the maximum time allowed for restoring a function after a disruption, while RPOs determine the maximum amount of data loss that can be tolerated.
• Develop recovery strategies: Design strategies to restore critical functions and processes within the defined RTOs and RPOs. These may include alternate facilities, backup systems, manual workarounds, or third-party support services. Ensure the strategies are feasible, cost-effective, and compatible with the organization’s risk appetite.
• Create a business continuity team: Assemble a cross-functional team responsible for overseeing and implementing the BCP. Define roles and responsibilities for each team member, ensuring they understand their duties during a disruption.
• Develop an incident management framework: Create a framework for managing incidents that may trigger the BCP, including detection, assessment, response, and recovery procedures. Integrate this framework with the organization’s incident response plan to ensure a coordinated approach to disruptions.
• Establish communication protocols: Develop clear communication protocols for internal and external communications during a disruption. This should include guidelines for notifying employees, customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders and managing media inquiries.
• Train and educate employees: Train employees on their roles and responsibilities within the BCP and the procedures for executing the plan during a disruption. Conduct regular awareness programs to inform employees about potential threats and the importance of business continuity planning.
• Test and update the BCP: Regularly test the BCP through simulations, tabletop exercises, or live drills to identify gaps or weaknesses and update the plan accordingly. Review the plan at least annually or whenever significant changes occur within the organization, such as new technology implementations, mergers or acquisitions, or changes in the risk landscape.
• Document and maintain the BCP: Keep a detailed and up-to-date record of the BCP, including recovery strategies, contact information, and communication protocols. Store this documentation in a secure and easily accessible location, both on-site and off-site.

By developing and maintaining a robust business continuity plan, enterprises can enhance their resilience to disruptive events, minimize potential impacts on their operations, and ensure the continuity of critical business functions.

Training and Education of Employees about Digital Operational Resiliency:

Companies can train and educate their employees about digital operational resilience by implementing the following measures:

• Develop a comprehensive training program: Create a tailored training program that covers essential aspects of digital operational resilience, including cybersecurity, risk management, incident response, business continuity, and disaster recovery. Ensure the program addresses the unique needs and responsibilities of different organizational roles.
• Regular training sessions: Conduct training sessions regularly to ensure employees remain up-to-date on the latest best practices, threats, and technologies related to digital operational resilience. This can include a mix of in-person training, webinars, e-learning modules, and workshops.
• Role-specific training: Provide role-specific training to employees based on their job functions and responsibilities. For example, IT staff may require more in-depth training on cybersecurity measures, while non-technical employees may need a more general understanding of risks and best practices.
• Real-life scenarios and simulations: Use real-life scenarios and simulations to make the training more engaging and practical. This can help employees better understand the potential impact of disruptions and the importance of maintaining digital operational resilience.
• Interactive learning: Encourage interactive learning through group discussions, workshops, and hands-on exercises. This can help employees develop problem-solving skills and foster a collaborative approach to addressing digital operational resilience challenges.
• Awareness campaigns: Implement ongoing awareness campaigns to inform employees about the latest threats, best practices, and their role in maintaining digital operational resilience. This can include newsletters, posters, or regular updates from the company’s IT or security team.
• Assess and measure effectiveness: Regularly assess the effectiveness of training and education programs through quizzes, surveys, or other evaluation methods. Use this feedback to identify areas for improvement and refine the training content and delivery methods.
• Gamification: Incorporate gamification techniques, such as rewards, points, or leaderboards, to make training more engaging and fun for employees. This can help increase participation and retention of the material.
• External resources and partnerships: Leverage external resources, such as industry associations, government agencies, or security consultants, to provide additional expertise and insights on digital operational resilience topics. This can help ensure that the training content remains current and relevant.
• Continuous improvement: Regularly review and update the training program to ensure it remains effective despite evolving threats, technologies, and business requirements. This should involve soliciting employee feedback, monitoring industry trends, and incorporating lessons learned from incidents or exercises.

Conduct Risk Assessment:

Enterprises can conduct risk assessments to identify and analyze potential risks and vulnerabilities within their digital infrastructure, systems, and processes by following these steps:

• Define the scope: Clearly outline the scope of the risk assessment, including the digital assets, systems, and processes to be evaluated. This may include data centers, networks, applications, databases, and other critical digital assets.
• Identify assets: Create an inventory of all digital assets within the scope of the risk assessment, including hardware, software, data, and network components. Document the location, function, and criticality of each asset.
• Identify threats and vulnerabilities: Analyze each asset and identify potential threats and vulnerabilities, such as natural disasters, cyberattacks, hardware failures, software bugs, or human error. Then, combine internal expertise, external resources, and industry best practices to compile a comprehensive list.
• Assess impact and likelihood: For each identified threat and vulnerability, evaluate the potential impact on the organization’s operations, reputation, or finances. Also, assess the probability of each risk, considering factors such as the organization’s threat landscape, past incidents, and existing security measures.
• Prioritize risks: Rank the identified risks based on their potential impact and likelihood. This prioritization will help the organization focus on addressing the most significant risks.
• Develop mitigation strategies: Develop and implement mitigation strategies for the prioritized risks. This may include enhancing cybersecurity measures, implementing redundancies, improving incident response plans, or investing in employee training and awareness programs.
• Monitor and review: Monitor the effectiveness of the implemented risk mitigation strategies and review the risk assessment regularly to identify new risks and vulnerabilities. Update the risk assessment and mitigation strategies to address the evolving threat landscape.
• Document and communicate: Document the risk assessment process, findings, and mitigation strategies. Communicate the results to relevant stakeholders, such as management, employees, and external partners, to ensure a shared understanding of the organization’s risk posture and the steps to address those risks.

Incidence Response Planning:

Enterprises can create an effective incident response plan by following these steps:

• Establish an incident response team: Form a dedicated team of experts with diverse skills and expertise, including IT, cybersecurity, legal, public relations, and business operations. This team will be responsible for managing and coordinating the incident response efforts.
• Define roles and responsibilities: Clearly outline the roles and responsibilities of each team member, ensuring that everyone understands their duties during an incident. This may include designating a team leader, incident responders, investigators, and communication coordinators.
• Develop incident response procedures: Create detailed procedures for detecting, containing, and remediating various incidents, such as data breaches, malware infections, or system failures. This should include step-by-step guidance on responding to each type of incident and any necessary tools or resources.
• Establish communication protocols: Develop clear communication protocols for internal and external communications during an incident. This should include guidelines for notifying affected stakeholders, such as employees, customers, and regulatory authorities, and managing media inquiries.
• Create an incident notification and escalation process: Define the process for reporting and escalating incidents within the organization. This should include guidelines on how and when to notify the incident response team, senior management, and other relevant stakeholders.
• Integrate with business continuity and disaster recovery plans: Ensure that the incident response plan aligns with the organization’s business continuity and disaster recovery plans, enabling a coordinated response to incidents that may impact critical business functions.
• Conduct training and awareness programs: Train employees and incident response team members on their roles and responsibilities and the incident response procedures. In addition, conduct regular awareness programs to keep employees informed about potential threats and how to report incidents.
• Test and update the plan: Regularly test the incident response plan through simulations or tabletop exercises to identify gaps or weaknesses and update the plan accordingly. This will help ensure the program remains effective despite evolving threats and organizational changes.
• Document and review the plan: Maintain detailed documentation of the incident response plan, including procedures, roles, responsibilities, and communication protocols. Review the plan regularly to remain current and aligned with the organization’s risk landscape, regulatory requirements, and business objectives.

Disaster Recovery Planning:

Enterprises can create a robust disaster recovery plan (DRP) by following these steps:

• Align with the business continuity plan: Ensure the disaster recovery plan aligns with and complements the organization’s business continuity plan (BCP). The DRP should focus on restoring IT systems, data, and infrastructure to support the resumption of critical business functions outlined in the BCP.
• Identify critical IT systems and assets: Inventory all IT systems, applications, data, and infrastructure components that support critical business functions. Assess the importance of each asset and prioritize them based on their criticality and the potential impact of downtime.
• Set recovery objectives: Define recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) for each critical IT asset. RTOs specify the maximum time allowed for restoring an asset after a disruption, while RPOs determine the maximum amount of data loss that can be tolerated.
• Develop recovery strategies: Design strategies to restore critical IT assets within the defined RTOs and RPOs. These may include data backups, redundant systems, alternate sites, cloud-based recovery solutions, or third-party disaster recovery services.
• Establish an incident response framework: Develop a framework for detecting, assessing, and responding to incidents that may trigger the DRP. This should include clear protocols for activating the plan, assigning responsibilities, and coordinating the recovery efforts.
• Form a disaster recovery team: Assemble a dedicated IT and business personnel team responsible for executing the DRP during a disaster. Define roles and responsibilities for each team member and ensure they are trained and equipped to perform their duties.
• Create communication protocols: Develop clear communication protocols for internal and external communications during a disaster recovery event. This should include guidelines for updating stakeholders, such as employees, customers, suppliers, and regulators, on the status of recovery efforts and the expected timeline for resuming normal operations.
• Test and update the DRP: Regularly test the disaster recovery plan through simulations, tabletop exercises, or live drills to identify gaps or weaknesses and update the plan accordingly. Review the plan at least annually or whenever significant changes occur within the organization, such as new technology implementations or changes in the risk landscape.
• Document and maintain the DRP: Keep a detailed and up-to-date record of the DRP, including recovery strategies, contact information, and communication protocols. Store this documentation in a secure and easily accessible location, both on-site and off-site.

By developing and maintaining a robust disaster recovery plan, enterprises can enhance their resilience to adverse events, minimize potential impacts on their operations, and ensure the timely restoration of critical IT systems and infrastructure.

Cybersecurity:

Enterprises can set up a robust cybersecurity program by implementing the following measures to protect their digital assets, systems, and data from unauthorized access, misuse, or damage:

• Develop a cybersecurity strategy: Create a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy that aligns with the organization’s business objectives, risk appetite, and regulatory requirements. This should include clear goals, priorities, and performance metrics to measure the program’s effectiveness.
• Establish a cybersecurity governance framework: Create a governance framework that defines roles, responsibilities, and decision-making processes for managing cybersecurity risks across the organization. This should involve senior management and board members to ensure top-level commitment and oversight.
• Implement security policies and procedures: Develop and enforce security policies and procedures that address access control, incident response, data protection, and vendor management. Ensure these policies are regularly reviewed and updated to reflect evolving threats, technologies, and business requirements.
• Employ a layered defense approach: Adopt a defense-in-depth approach to security, which involves deploying multiple layers of security controls across the organization’s networks, systems, and applications. This may include firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems, endpoint protection, and encryption technologies.
• Conduct regular risk assessments: Perform periodic risk assessments to identify and prioritize cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities. Use this information to guide the development and implementation of targeted security controls and risk mitigation strategies.
• Promote a security-aware culture: Implement training and awareness programs to educate employees about cybersecurity risks, best practices, and their responsibilities in protecting the organization’s digital assets. Encourage a culture of security awareness and vigilance throughout the organization.
• Monitor and detect threats: Establish a security operations center (SOC) or leverage managed security services to continuously monitor and detect potential threats and anomalies in the organization’s networks and systems. Implement proactive threat-hunting practices to identify and respond to emerging threats.
• Implement incident response and recovery plans: Develop and maintain incident response and disaster recovery plans to effectively address security breaches, minimize the impact of incidents, and restore normal operations as quickly as possible.
• Regularly update and patch systems: Ensure that all software, hardware, and firmware components are kept up to date with the latest patches and updates to address known vulnerabilities and reduce potential attack vectors.
• Collaborate and share information: Collaborate with industry peers, government agencies, and cybersecurity organizations to share threat intelligence, best practices, and lessons learned. This can help improve the organization’s overall security posture and contribute to a more robust cybersecurity ecosystem.

Monitor and Test Digital Operational Resilience:

Companies can monitor and test their digital operational resilience by implementing the following measures:

• Continuous monitoring: Establish a continuous monitoring program to track the real-time performance and security of digital assets, systems, and processes. This may involve deploying tools and technologies like security information and event management (SIEM) systems, network monitoring solutions, and endpoint detection and response (EDR) platforms.
• Vulnerability assessments: Regularly assess vulnerability to identify weaknesses in the organization’s digital infrastructure, systems, and applications. Use vulnerability scanning tools and manual testing techniques to uncover risks and prioritize them based on their potential impact.
• Penetration testing: Perform periodic penetration tests to simulate real-world attacks on the organization’s digital assets and identify potential security gaps. These tests can help assess the effectiveness of existing security measures and identify areas that need improvement.
• Compliance audits: Conduct regular audits to ensure compliance with relevant regulations, industry standards, and internal policies. This can help identify gaps in the organization’s digital operational resilience measures and ensure the necessary controls are in place.
• Incident response drills: Conduct regular incident response exercises, such as tabletop exercises or live simulations, to test the organization’s ability to detect, respond to, and recover from various adverse events. This can help identify areas for improvement in the incident response plan and ensure that team members are well-prepared for real-world incidents.
• Business continuity and disaster recovery testing: Test the organization’s business continuity and disaster recovery plans through scheduled exercises or simulations. This can help verify that critical business functions can be restored within acceptable timeframes and validate the effectiveness of recovery strategies.
• Employee training and awareness: Regularly assess the effectiveness of employee training and awareness programs to ensure that staff members know digital operational resilience best practices and their roles in maintaining it. This may involve conducting surveys, quizzes, or evaluations to measure knowledge retention and identify areas for improvement.
• Third-party assessments: Engage external experts or third-party auditors to assess the organization’s digital operational resilience measures independently. This can provide an unbiased perspective and help identify areas that may have been overlooked internally.
• Key performance indicators (KPIs): Establish KPIs to track the effectiveness of the organization’s digital operational resilience measures. These may include metrics related to incident detection and response times, system uptime, or the number of vulnerabilities identified and remediated.
• Regular reviews and updates: Routinely review and update the organization’s digital operational resilience measures to ensure they remain effective despite evolving threats, technologies, and business requirements. This should involve reviewing and updating policies, procedures, plans, and controls as needed.

Collaboration and Information Sharing:

Collaboration and information sharing is vital for enhancing digital operational resilience across organizations and industries. By pooling knowledge, experiences, and resources, organizations can better understand and respond to the rapidly evolving landscape of digital threats and challenges. The importance of collaboration and information sharing in digital operational resilience can be highlighted through the following aspects:

• Collective knowledge: By sharing experiences, best practices, and lessons learned, organizations can benefit from the collective expertise of their peers, industry experts, and government agencies. This enables them to make more informed decisions and implement more effective resilience measures.
• Threat intelligence sharing: Timely sharing of threat intelligence can help organizations more effectively identify and respond to emerging threats and vulnerabilities. By collaborating with others in their industry, organizations can gain insights into attack patterns, tactics, and indicators of compromise, which can be invaluable in detecting and mitigating threats.
• Enhanced security posture: Collaboration and information sharing can lead to the development of better security controls, tools, and methodologies, ultimately improving the security posture of all participating organizations.
• Faster response to incidents: When organizations collaborate and share information about incidents, they can develop more effective incident response strategies and coordinate their efforts more efficiently. This can lead to faster detection, containment, and recovery from incidents, minimizing the overall impact on the affected organizations.
• Benchmarking and best practices: By sharing information about their resilience measures, organizations can compare their efforts with their peers and identify areas for improvement. This can help establish industry benchmarks and best practices, driving continuous improvement and raising digital operational resilience.
• Regulatory compliance: In some industries, collaboration and information sharing may be required to comply with regulatory requirements or industry standards. By engaging in these activities, organizations can demonstrate their commitment to maintaining a strong digital operational resilience posture and meeting compliance obligations.
• Building trust and relationships: Collaboration and information sharing can help build trust and foster relationships among organizations, industry partners, and government agencies. These relationships can be invaluable in times of crisis, enabling organizations to work together more effectively and efficiently to address challenges and recover from disruptions.
• Strengthening the broader ecosystem: By collaborating and sharing information, organizations can contribute to a more resilient and secure digital ecosystem. This can help reduce the overall risk for all participants and create a safer environment for businesses and individuals.

Digital operational resilience is paramount for enterprises in today’s increasingly interconnected and technology-driven world. It refers to an organization’s ability to maintain critical business functions, protect digital assets, and recover from adverse events such as cyberattacks, technical failures, or natural disasters. In addition, a robust digital operational resilience posture enables organizations to minimize the impact of disruptions, safeguard their reputation, and maintain customer trust.