Cyber resilience refers to an entity's ability to continuously deliver the intended outcome, despite cyber attacks. Resilience to cyber attacks is essential to IT systems, critical infrastructure, business processes, organizations, societies, and nation-states. Adverse cyber events are those that negatively impact the availability, integrity, or confidentiality of networked IT systems and associated information and services. These events may be intentional (e.g.

cyber attack A cyberattack is any offensive maneuver that targets computer information systems, computer networks, infrastructures, or personal computer devices. An attacker is a person or process that attempts to access data, functions, or other restricted ...

) or unintentional (e.g. failed software update) and caused by humans, nature, or a combination thereof. Unlike

cyber security Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, the ...

, which is designed to protect systems, networks and data from cyber crimes, cyber resilience is designed to prevent systems and networks from being derailed in the event that security is compromised. Cyber security is effective without compromising the usability of systems and there is a robust continuity business plan to resume operations, if the cyber attack is successful. Cyber resilience helps businesses to recognize that hackers have the advantage of innovative tools, element of surprise, target and can be successful in their attempt. This concept helps business to prepare, prevent, respond and successfully recover to the intended secure state. This is a cultural shift as the organization sees security as a full-time job and embedded security best practices in day-to-day operations. In comparison to cyber security, cyber resilience requires the business to think differently and be more agile on handling attacks. The objective of cyber resilience is to maintain the entity's ability to deliver the intended outcome continuously at all times. This means doing so even when regular delivery mechanisms have failed, such as during a crisis or after a security breach. The concept also includes the ability to restore or recover regular delivery mechanisms after such events, as well as the ability to continuously change or modify these delivery mechanisms, if needed in the face of new risks.

Backup In information technology, a backup, or data backup is a copy of computer data taken and stored elsewhere so that it may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form, referring to the process of doing so, is "back up", w ...

s and

disaster recovery Disaster recovery is the process of maintaining or reestablishing vital infrastructure and systems following a natural or human-induced disaster, such as a storm or battle.It employs policies, tools, and procedures. Disaster recovery focuses on t ...

operations are part of the process of restoring delivery mechanisms.

Frameworks

Resilience, as defined by Presidential Policy Directive PPD-21, is the ability to prepare for and adapt to changing conditions and withstand and recover rapidly from disruptions. Cyber resilience focuses on the preventative, detective, and reactive controls in an information technology environment to assess gaps and drive enhancements to the overall security posture of the entity. The Cyber Resilience Review (CRR) is one framework for the assessment of an entity's resiliency created by the

Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...

. Another framework created by Symantec is based on 5 pillars: Prepare/Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover. The

National Institute of Standards and Technology The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...

's Special Publication 800-160 Volume 2 Rev. 1 offers a framework for engineering secure and reliable systems—treating adverse cyber events as both resiliency and security issues. In particular 800-160 identifies fourteen techniques that can be used to improve resiliency:

References

{{Reflist Computer security procedures IT infrastructure Cyberwarfare Security National security Business continuity Disaster preparedness

Frameworks

See also

References