Business Impact Analysis (BIA) Assignment in Information Security

This assignment solution addresses a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) within the context of Information Security Management. The solution begins by outlining the initial steps of a BIA, including identifying critical business functions and processes to assess potential risks. It emphasizes the importance of establishing component priorities by evaluating financial, regulatory, and reputational risks. The solution also explores the significance of BIA scenarios and components, such as financial and service impacts of component unavailability, in establishing priorities. It further describes the resources needed in the execution of the recovery strategies, highlighting the importance of business process and function managers to complete the Business Continuity Resource Requirement worksheet. The assignment then discusses the significance of recovery time frameworks in determining intervention measures. The provided solution also includes references to relevant literature, such as the works of Sikdar (2011) and Caselli et al. (2016), to support the analysis.

Information Security Management - Business Impact Analysis (BIA)
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Information Security Management - Business Impact Analysis (BIA)
Conducting a business impact analysis (BIA) normally starts with the identification of
the business functions and processes that are performed in a given organization. Once the
functions have been understood, they can then be used to establish component priorities by
analyzing them against areas such as financial risk, regulatory risk, and reputational risks if
they fail to be performed at a specific time. An example of a BIA which have been done
using Smartsheet template will be attached.
On the other hand, BIA scenarios and components also form an important way of
establishing component priorities during business impact analysis. For example, an analysis
of what happens in different scenarios may be used to provide essential data on the nature of
threats faced and the possible impacts or scenarios in the event of an emergency such as data
security lapse. Financial and service impact of components not being available is another
aspect of business impact analysis that can also be used as a method of establishing
component priorities. This is particularly because the financial and service impact analysis
can provide details and information related to the potential financial consequences or
monetary impacts of a given component.
There should be some analysis of the resources needed in the execution of the
recovery strategies to identify gaps. Sikdar (2011), suggests that the business process and
function managers need to complete the Business Continuity Resource Requirement
worksheet. The completed worksheets can then aid in establishing the resource requirements
pertaining to a given recovery strategy. In case an incident disrupting the business operations
arises, the identified resources will help in accomplishing recovery strategies together with
the restoration of usual business operations. Resources include things like third-party
services, employees and technology. Recovering components might entail entry into
partnership or contracting third parties with the aim of getting the necessary expertise

regarding a recovery process. Internally, staff with detailed knowledge about the business
functions and processes will be better positioned in terms of determining whatever can work.
Every possible alternative needs to be presented to the management which will finally
approve then decide the amount to spend.
If worksheets are used, the information should then be reviewed after each manager
has completed his worksheet so as to identify any gap or inconsistency within the provided
information. Constant meetings will then be held with the respective managers to clarify or
obtain missing information. Following the completion and validation of every worksheet, the
priorities to restore business processes should be figured out. Dependent and primary
resource requirements must as well be identified. Such pieces of information will be
instrumental in developing recovery strategies (Caselli et al., 2016).
Lastly, recovery time frameworks are critically significant in addressing the recovery
time requirements including the maximum time that the business can tolerate when certain
business functions are absent, in order to help the coordinators in the identification of the
most critical, short term, medium term as well as long term intervention measures that need
to be undertaken.

References
Caselli, F., Reyes, M., Beale, M., Akakura, Y., & Ono, K. (2016). Methodology and
procedure of business impact analysis for improving port logistics business continuity
management. IDRiM Journal, 6(1), 1–29.
https://doi.org/10.1032/19393555.2015.5573929
Sikdar, P. (2011). Alternate Approaches to Business Impact Analysis. Information Security
Journal: A Global Perspective, 20(3), 128–134.
https://doi.org/10.1080/19393555.2010.551274