BC/DR Survival Checklist

Download PDF

Service Area: Operational Resilience

If you can’t restore critical services fast and predictably, you don’t have BC/DR—you have hope.

• Complete a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) and name system/business owners.

• Tier systems and processes (Tier 0/1/2) based on operational and customer impact.

• Set RTO and RPO targets for every Tier 0 and Tier 1 service.

• Map hard dependencies (IdP/SSO, DNS, email, VPN, IAM, keys/certs, network paths).

• Inventory third-party dependencies and escalation contacts (cloud, SaaS, MSP, carriers).

• Define recovery sequence/runbooks for Tier 0 and Tier 1 (restore order, prerequisites, validation steps).

• Implement 3-2-1-1 backups (incl. one immutable/air-gapped copy).

• Verify backup integrity with routine restore tests (not just “backup succeeded” logs).

• Separate admin roles and harden backup access (MFA, least privilege, isolated creds).

• Maintain offline access to critical artifacts (DR plan, diagrams, credentials, licenses, break-glass accounts).

• Establish disaster declaration criteria and a clear chain of command.

• Pre-stage out-of-band communications (secure messaging, emergency bridge, contact trees).

• Prepare customer/employee/media templates and approval workflow.

• Run quarterly tabletop exercises with IT + exec stakeholders.

• Run at least bi-annual technical recovery tests (restore/failover) for Tier 0/1.

• Record results, close gaps, and update the plan after every test/change/event.

• Ensure new systems, vendors, and major changes are added to the BC/DR inventory immediately.

Want this validated against your environment with evidence-based testing? Red Spider Security can assess your BC/DR readiness, pressure-test recoverability, and deliver a prioritized remediation roadmap—contact us at https://www.redspidersecurity.com.