Natural disasters happen. Security breaches happen. Sometimes, systems crash and critical data gets lost.
With fears of potential security breaches and disasters such as Superstorm Sandy weighing on IT executives, businesses nationwide continue to advance their business continuity and disaster recovery planning to include the adoption of wireless network capabilities, cloud services and mobile applications.
A recent AT&T business continuity study found that more than half of executives surveyed (63 percent) cite the looming threat of security breaches as their most important security concern for 2013.
And with the increase in IT budgets, companies are increasingly utilizing the cloud for their business continuity plans to help minimize the impact of potential threats and disasters.
The survey found three-fourths (76 percent) of companies are using cloud or plan to invest in cloud services in 2013. Of those surveyed, 62 percent already include cloud services as part of their corporate infrastructure, up 11 percentage points from the previous year, according to an article on eWEEK.com.
Two-thirds (66 percent) of companies are using or considering using cloud services to augment their business continuity strategy, and for disaster recovery purposes, a plurality of companies plan on leveraging cloud computing for data storage (49%).
As companies look beyond the potential impact of natural disasters to the impact of network security events, they continue to expand their disaster plans accordingly. Three-fourths (78 percent) of companies indicated that their business continuity plan accommodates the possibility of a network security event. Seven out of 10 (73 percent) companies are taking proactive or reactive measures to protect against distributed denial of services (DDos) attacks.
“Companies today are very aware and concerned about the potential threats that could disrupt their operations,” said Michael Singer, AVP, mobile, cloud and access management security at AT&T. “With their business continuity plans in place, businesses are investing in new technologies like network enabled cloud services to help strengthen and expand their overall continuity strategies.”
AT&T also conducts several Network Disaster Recovery (NDR) exercises each year in both regional and international markets. These events are designed to test, refine and strengthen AT&T’s business continuity and disaster recovery services. By simulating large-scale disasters and network service disruptions, AT&T can apply and refine best practices for rapidly restoring communications.
— 84 percent of executives are concerned about the use of mobile networks and devices and its impact on security threats.
— 88 percent of those surveyed understand the increasing importance of security and indicate that their companies have a proactive strategy in place.
— Nearly two-thirds (64%) of companies include their wireless network capabilities as part of their business continuity plan.
— 87 percent of executives indicate their organizations have a business continuity plan in place in case of a disaster or threat – a slight uptick from last year (86%).
The results for the latest AT&T annual business continuity study brings to light several trends regarding how businesses are preparing themselves for potential disasters and threats. AT&T has conducted this study for 12 consecutive years, surveying IT executives from companies in the United States with at least $25 million in annual revenue to measure the national pulse on business continuity planning.
Patrick Burke is a writer and editor based in the greater New York area and occasionally blogs for Rackspace Hosting
