Combining Cybersecurity and IT Disaster Recovery Solutions to Safeguard Canadian Organizations

Canadian businesses and organizations need cybersecurity solutions in place along with robust backup and disaster recovery capabilities to ensure they’re resilient and protected against all threats and disruptions to their critical and everyday operations.

In today’s digital-first landscape, a growing number of Canadians rely on technology to drive their operations. However, with greater tech reliance comes heightened vulnerability to cyber threats. Organizations need to implement multi-layered cyber resiliency and disaster recovery solutions for effective prevention, detection, incident response, and recovery from downtime.

Under-estimating the requirements, likelihood, and consequences from cybersecurity attacks, data breaches, and malicious insider threats can result in potentially business-ending events.

Building a robust Business Continuity Plan (BCP) with IT disaster recovery strategies that are tailored to meet modern cybersecurity demands requires a blend of strategic foresight, advanced technology, and flexibility.

Understanding the Current Cyber Threat Landscape

Cyber threats continue to evolve at an alarming rate. Ransomware, phishing attacks, data breaches, and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) incidents are increasing daily, often targeting critical infrastructure. Specifically, Canadian businesses spent $1.2 billion recovering from cybersecurity incidents last year, double what was paid a couple of years earlier. Canadian organizations, particularly small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs), face challenges maintaining strong defenses due to limited resources and a lack of cybersecurity expertise. For example, RCMP’s cybercrime investigative teams experienced ongoing challenges in recruiting and retaining staff with the needed technical skills, resulting in a 30% position vacancy since January 2024, affecting their capacity to address cybercrime.

According to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, there have been over 21,604 reports of fraud in Canada with over $284 million stolen since the start of 2024. The risk of downtime, data and monetary loss, and reputational damage makes having a robust business continuity plan essential.

The Role of Business Continuity Planning in Cyber Resilience

Business Continuity Planning involves creating systems of prevention and recovery to deal with potential threats to a company’s operations. For Canadian businesses, a well-crafted BCP ensures critical business functions continue operating during and after a disaster—whether it’s a natural event, cyberattack, IT system failure, or sudden disruption to your workforce or critical third-parties. Effective BCPs must now include comprehensive strategies for maintaining cybersecurity, data integrity, and IT infrastructure resilience.

Cyber resilience is a key component of BCPs because business disruptions are more likely to come from cyber incidents than physical ones, like a natural disaster. However, traditional approaches to BCP, which focused solely on backup systems and disaster recovery, are no longer sufficient. Organizations must focus on agile solutions that incorporate robust cybersecurity measures into their continuity planning.

Offering More Choices for Greater Cyber Resilience

The backbone of a strong IT continuity plan lies in offering businesses choices—choices that ensure they can tailor their strategies based on specific operational needs and risk profiles. Canadian businesses are looking for flexibility in the following key areas:

Cloud-Based vs. On-Premise Solutions: Different managed Cloud solutions provide Canadian businesses with greater resilience by diversifying their IT infrastructure. Cloud-based backups, for instance, ensure that businesses can recover critical data even if local systems are compromised during a cyberattack. Offering options to choose between Cloud-only, or on-premise allows businesses to implement a tailored approach that best suits their needs and budget.

Managed Services for Cybersecurity: Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) offer businesses the ability to offload critical cybersecurity functions to experts. By partnering with an MSSP, businesses gain access to advanced threat detection, incident response, and compliance management. MSSPs also ensure that companies stay current with the latest security patches and updates, further strengthening BCP. Advanced MSSPs like Thrive, which provide next-generation cybersecurity solutions, are key to ensuring cyber resilience. Thrive’s integrated approach to cybersecurity management helps organizations defend against advanced threats, mitigate risks, and recover from attacks quickly.

Autonomous Penetration Testing: Autonomous penetration testing is a cutting-edge service that Canadian businesses can leverage to strengthen their cyber resilience. By continuously identifying and addressing vulnerabilities in IT systems, businesses can ensure that their BCP remains aligned with current cyber risks. This proactive approach helps organizations to stay ahead of potential attacks, giving them more control over their cybersecurity posture.

Managed Detection and Response: MDR services are a human-led approach to cybersecurity aimed at detecting and mitigating threats to networks, cloud infrastructure, servers, and SaaS applications in real time. Thrive combines cutting-edge technology with the expertise of skilled cybersecurity professionals to provide frontline protection from costly cyber threats such as ransomware, phishing, and crypto-jacking.

Endpoint Detection and Response: Specifically designed as a proactive security solution for workstations and servers, EDR reduces security risk by detecting malicious activity, preventing malware infection, and disabling potential threats. EDR can be difficult to implement and utilize to its full potential without experienced IT support resources who can quickly respond to threats to endpoints when they happen.

Scalable Disaster Recovery Solutions: Not all businesses require the same level of disaster recovery preparedness. Small businesses may need basic backup and recovery solutions, while larger enterprises might require more robust systems that ensure minimal downtime. Scalable managed disaster recovery services allow companies to pay only for the resources they need, with the flexibility to scale as their business grows.

Scalability also extends to cybersecurity solutions such as real-time network monitoring, automated vulnerability scanning, and penetration testing, which can be adapted as companies’ needs evolve.

Strengthening Business Continuity Through Collaboration

Canadian businesses are also realizing the importance of collaboration when it comes to continuity planning. Cyber resilience is not achieved in isolation; it requires coordination across teams, departments, and external partners. For example, partnering with third-party cybersecurity firms and MSSPs, like Thrive, ensures that companies have access to the latest security tools and expertise. Thrive has deep experience in applying NIST and CIS frameworks and best practices for businesses and organizations of all sizes and industries.

Moreover, the collaborative efforts between the private sector and the Canadian government, through initiatives such as the CyberSecure Canada certification, help SMBs implement recognized cybersecurity standards. This certification helps businesses strengthen their cybersecurity posture while providing assurance to their customers and partners.

By adopting flexible, scalable, and collaborative approaches, businesses can not only survive a cyber incident but also thrive in an increasingly complex threat landscape. With the right mix of tools and strategies, Canadian businesses can ensure that their IT infrastructure remains robust, responsive, and ready for whatever challenges lie ahead. Contact Thrive today to learn more about how our Canada-based managed services can help your organization stay resilient against ongoing cyber threats.