As someone who has spent over six years in the trenches of IT operations at Amazon, managing critical infrastructure that cannot afford downtime, I’ve witnessed firsthand how the convergence of cyberthreats and business continuity has fundamentally changed the game for executives.
The 3 am call that every CISO and CIO dreads isn’t just about a server crash anymore. It’s about sophisticated threat actors who understand that disrupting your operations can be more profitable than stealing your data. After managing IT infrastructure for one of the world’s largest companies and responding to countless incidents, I can tell you that the traditional approach to business continuity planning is dangerously outdated.
The $5.4 million question every executive must answer
According to IBM’s 2024 Cost of a Data Breach report, the average cost of a data breach has reached $4.88 million globally, with business disruption accounting for the largest portion of these costs. But here’s what keeps me up at night: These figures don’t capture the full picture of what happens when cybercriminals specifically target your business continuity infrastructure.
During my tenure as an IT support engineer at Amazon, I’ve seen how quickly operational disruptions cascade through interconnected systems. When attackers target your disaster recovery sites, backup systems and the very tools you rely on to restore operations, the financial impact multiplies exponentially. The question isn’t whether your organization will face a cyber-induced business disruption; it’s whether you’ll survive it with your reputation and market position intact.
Why traditional business continuity plans fail against modern threats
I’ve implemented change management processes in environments requiring 99.99% uptime and I can tell you that most business continuity plans were designed for a different era. They assume that your backup systems, communication channels and recovery procedures will be available when you need them. Today’s threat actors specifically target these assumptions.
The 2023 Veeam Ransomware Trends Report revealed that 93% of ransomware attacks target backup repositories. This isn’t coincidental. Cybercriminals understand that by compromising your recovery infrastructure, they maximize their leverage and your desperation.
From my experience managing IT assets and coordinating incident responses, I’ve learned that the most dangerous assumption executives make is that cybersecurity and business continuity are separate disciplines. They’re not. They’re two sides of the same operational coin and treating them separately creates the vulnerabilities that sophisticated attackers exploit.
The human factor: Your biggest asset and greatest risk
Having trained numerous engineers and served as an escalation point for complex technical challenges, I’ve observed a critical pattern: human behavior under pressure consistently undermines even the most sophisticated technical controls. When your primary systems are down and executives are demanding immediate restoration, your team will take shortcuts.
They’ll use personal devices to access company systems. They’ll share credentials to speed up recovery processes. They’ll bypass security protocols to restore operations quickly. This isn’t a training problem; it’s a human nature problem that requires systematic solutions.
The 2024 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report confirms that 68% of breaches involve a human element. During crisis situations, this percentage increases dramatically as stress and urgency override security awareness.
Building resilient infrastructure: Lessons from high-availability environments
Implementing network security protocols and backup solutions in Amazon’s demanding environment has taught me that resilience requires a fundamental shift in thinking. You cannot simply add cybersecurity measures to existing business continuity plans.
You must architect your entire continuity strategy around the assumption that your primary systems will be compromised.
This means implementing network segmentation that isolates critical business functions from general corporate networks. When attackers gain access to email systems or file shares, they shouldn’t automatically have pathways to manufacturing controls or financial systems. NIST’s Zero Trust Architecture guidelines provide a framework, but implementation requires deep understanding of your operational dependencies.
Your backup and recovery systems need their own security considerations. I’ve seen organizations invest millions in backup infrastructure only to discover that attackers had persistent access to their recovery environments for months. This requires implementing offline backup strategies, maintaining air-gapped recovery environments and regularly testing restoration procedures under simulated attack conditions.
The cloud paradox: Opportunity and vulnerability
Cloud services present both opportunities and challenges for business continuity planning. While platforms like AWS, Azure and Google Cloud offer geographic redundancy and professional security management, they also create dependencies on external providers and internet connectivity.
The 2023 Uptime Institute Global Data Center Survey found that 80% of data center outages could have been prevented through better processes and training. In cloud environments, you’re dependent on your provider’s processes and training, which creates a different risk profile that many executives underestimate.
Integration: Where most organizations fail
Effective business continuity planning must integrate cybersecurity incident response from the very beginning. This means having communication protocols that work even when primary networks are compromised, decision-making processes that account for ongoing security threats and recovery procedures that don’t inadvertently reintroduce vulnerabilities.
The traditional approach of focusing on restoring operations first and investigating security issues later is no longer viable. Organizations need to be able to conduct forensic analysis while simultaneously working to restore services. This requires specialized tools, trained personnel and procedures that balance the urgency of business recovery with the need to preserve evidence and prevent further compromise.
Testing: The reality check most executives avoid
Regular testing becomes even more critical when cybersecurity threats are factored into the equation. Organizations need to conduct exercises that simulate not just technical failures, but active attacks on their recovery infrastructure. These tests should include scenarios where primary communication channels are compromised, key personnel are unavailable and recovery systems themselves are under attack.
The SANS 2024 Detection and Response Survey revealed that organizations that conduct regular tabletop exercises recover 50% faster from actual incidents. But tabletop exercises aren’t enough. You need red team exercises where security professionals attempt to disrupt business continuity procedures using the same tactics that real attackers might employ.
The executive imperative: Act before the crisis
The integration of cybersecurity and business continuity planning will only become more important as organizations become increasingly dependent on digital infrastructure. Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and internet of things devices create new attack surfaces that must be considered in continuity planning.
The key to success lies in recognizing that cybersecurity and business continuity are not separate disciplines that occasionally overlap. They are fundamentally interconnected aspects of organizational resilience that must be planned, implemented and managed as a unified strategy.
As executives, you have a choice: Invest in integrated cyber-resilient business continuity now or explain to your board, customers and shareholders why your organization couldn’t maintain operations when it mattered most. The threat actors are already making their choice. The question is, what’s yours?
This article is published as part of the Foundry Expert Contributor Network.
Want to join?