Lessons from CrowdStrike: the importance of continuity planning

Last week’s outage experienced by CrowdStrike, a leading cybersecurity firm, underscores the need for small businesses to prepare for unexpected events. Through business continuity planning, small businesses can identify risks and make plans for how they would continue to operate if key systems, personnel or assets are interrupted. 

NSW Small Business Commissioner Chris Lamont encouraged small businesses to ensure they had an up-to-date business continuity plan.

“A continuity plan is not just a document, it’s a lifeline that ensures your business can continue to operate through unexpected disruptions,” said Lamont. “Whether it's a cyber-attack, natural disaster or technical failure, having a plan in place can minimise downtime and financial losses.”

The CrowdStrike outage serves as a stark reminder of potential vulnerabilities, even in well-established organisations, and follows other high-profile business interruptions, including the Optus outage in 2023. Small businesses can help protect themselves by building a business continuity plan, backing up data and ensuring strong cyber security measures are in place.

“Business continuity planning is a great way for business operators to think about how they would navigate a crisis and how to ensure important information is at hand to support a quick response,” said Mr Lamont. 

Learn how to build an effective Business Continuity Plan to help mitigate risks and safeguard your operations.

Make sure you are also informed about potential cyber security risks and how to deal with them. Read up on how to protect your business from online threats.