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The Key to Cyber Resilience: Identifying Critical Business Functions

This guest post was contribtued by Redjack CEO Greg Virgin


In today's digital landscape, businesses face an ever-increasing threat from cyberattacks. To effectively protect themselves, organizations must bolster their cyber resilience. One key strategy is identifying critical business functions and their associated IT assets. (Also referred to as ‘critical services’ by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Cyber Resilience Review (CRR).)


By understanding which aspects of your operations are most vital, you can prioritize your resources and efforts to strengthen your security measures.


Cyber resilience is the ability of an organization to prepare for, respond to, and recover from cyberattacks while continuing with normal operations. Legacy cybersecurity systems primarily focus on preventing and defending against cyber threats. Cyber resilience acknowledges that, despite your best efforts to prevent attacks, organizations will still be targeted, and incidents will occur. Therefore, it emphasizes the importance of maintaining business continuity and minimizing the impact.


Identifying critical business functions is crucial for building cyber resilience. These functions are the core activities that keep your organization running smoothly and generating revenue. Understanding which functions are critical allows you to focus your resources and efforts on protecting these areas. By prioritizing security measures, your organization can ensure its most vital operations are well-defended against cyber threats.


How to identify critical business functions

The process of identifying critical business functions involves a thorough examination of an organization's operations and dependencies. It requires collaboration between departments and stakeholders to understand the business's structure and processes.


●      Create a list of business functions

●      Prioritize functions and processes

●      Create an asset inventory

●      Document results


The final step is to document and communicate the identified critical business functions and their associated assets with your organization. This ensures that all stakeholders can align their efforts accordingly. It also helps you develop incident response plans and allocate resources effectively.

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