Security+ Exam Objectives 6.2

6.2 Implement disaster recovery procedures. 

Anytime business is negatively affected or halted, a disaster has occurred. The fact is that a disaster cannot be predicted but they are very common. Because of this, it’s highly important that businesses of all types, both large and small, take the necessary time and effect to have a plan that will allow for proper implementation of disaster recovery procedures if ever required. A business isn’t successful or dependable if the proper means are not in place to ensure that business can continue normally in the case of an unforeseen attack, intrusion, corruption, and so on. With disaster recovery, a business should be able to recover from any type of disaster as to avoid numeral loss.

Planning

 Planning is an important part disaster recovery. A business of any type will need to have a strong focus and understanding of business continuity, especially for inner and outer success to continue. Business continuity involves being able to maintain and upkeep with the IT infrastructure of a business to ensure that in the time of a disaster, attack or some other interruption to everyday business, that the company at hand is able to resume business in a short time frame.

Planning involves risk assessment and analysis, business impact analysis, mitigating risks, integrating and validating the disaster recovery plan, training, maintenance, and of course routine auditing of the plan at hand. Businesses will not only need to be aware of and prepared for disasters, but it’s important to find ways to attempt to ward off a disaster. While not everything can be stopped before doing damage to the systems in place, the best chance of saving any vital data is through proper planning, auditing, and maintenance. Employees should be properly trained and should be well aware of the disaster recovery procedure in place. As time goes on businesses want to audit their plans to ensure that they are still up-to-date and that they are still the best possible option.

Disaster recovery exercises

Disaster recovery exercises are exercises that many companies do not take the time, money, or effort to complete. However, they are truly an important part of any business’ success when it comes to perfecting a backup plan and technique. Disaster recovery exercises are needed to ensure that your plan not only works but is up to par with your business’ wants, needs, and expectations. These exercises should be routinely scheduled and need to be completed before a disaster. With these exercises a company is able to spot any flaws or miscommunications within the disaster recovery plan that can be fixed and modified as required. Any weaknesses that exist can also be addressed. Disaster recovery exercises also give those involved in implementing and using the plan a chance to become a little bit more familiar with the process in the case of a disaster.

Backup techniques and practices – storage

 If you think about it, backing up your information is truly the only way to insure that all of your data and documents along with your data resources are available to you in the event of a disaster, attack, intrusion, network disruption, and other problems that can occur without much before-hand notice.

However, before you can rely on your backup techniques you’ll first want to ensure that they work and are fully functional and reliable; otherwise your backup stands useless. Testing a backup technique merely requires you to restore data from the backup media which then verifies that necessary data can be restored. Without testing, there is nothing but doubt when it comes time to depend on your backup, allowing for a possibly successful or a failed back up plan.

When it comes to backups, companies have three main options, each are different when looking at the archive bit setting, the file header that flags a file as new or changed. Sometimes timestamps are also used to determine which files need to be backed up. The common three types are:

1.       Full back up – All files, including system files and software, are copied to the backup media no matter the archive bit setting. Archive bit is reset or cleared.

2.       Incremental – Files with a flagged or set archive bit are the only ones archived. Usually this includes only the files that have been changed or added after the last back-up. Incremental backups are quickest. Archive bit can be reset or cleared.

3.       Differential – Files with a flagged or set archive bit are the only ones archived. The archive bit cannot be reset or cleared.

It’s important that businesses make arrangements for these backups to be housed at an outside location to prevent any damage to this media. A combination of backups and can be used and backup type is based on preference, the amount of data, the type of data, and other factors.

Schemes

 At least one set of backup media should be kept at an offsite location. This ensures that a readily available and working backup is always within reach. If backups are located within the same location as the effected media, they too could become destroyed by a disaster. Rotating backups is a very common scheme in today’s business world. This means that media is rotated, ensuring that information is not always saved on the same data tapes each day. This is critical in the case that one of the media fails or is affected in some way that renders it not suitable for use. This also ensures that another backup is available elsewhere.

The Grandfather-Father-Son rotation scheme is often used. This scheme uses daily, weekly, and monthly data tapes that are all rotated in and out of use. With GFS one full backup is scheduled at least once a week and a mixture of incremental and differential backups occur on other days.

Restoration

With secure recovery and restoration, a business will have a plan to ensure that their classified, mission critical, secured, or sensitive information on servers can be easily and quickly restored without the worry of measurable loss or violations of set security code. With proper restoration, the effected system will be able to reboot into a secured state and that all security rules and settings are reset and in place.

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