Business Continuity & Incident Response
Ensuring operational resilience through disaster recovery planning, incident response procedures, and business continuity strategies that keep your mortgage operations running during crises
Companies Without BC Plan Fail
Within one year of major disaster
Cost Per Minute of Downtime
For financial services firms
Have Experienced Major Incident
In the past 24 months
Regulatory Requirement & Business Necessity
Federal regulators require financial institutions to have documented business continuity and disaster recovery plans. Beyond compliance, these plans are essential for protecting your business, maintaining customer trust, and ensuring you can continue operations during ransomware attacks, natural disasters, or system failures.
Essential Business Continuity Components
Building a comprehensive resilience framework for your organization
Business Impact Analysis (BIA)
Identify critical business functions, assess potential impacts of disruptions, and determine recovery priorities.
- Critical processes: Loan origination, funding, servicing
- Recovery time objectives (RTO): Maximum acceptable downtime
- Recovery point objectives (RPO): Acceptable data loss
- Financial impact: Cost of downtime per hour/day
Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP)
Technical procedures for restoring IT systems, data, and infrastructure after a disruption.
- Backup strategies: Automated, tested, offsite backups
- System recovery: Step-by-step restoration procedures
- Alternative infrastructure: Cloud failover or hot sites
- Data restoration: Prioritized recovery sequences
Incident Response Plan (IRP)
Structured approach to detecting, containing, and recovering from cybersecurity incidents.
- Detection & analysis: Identifying security incidents
- Containment: Isolating affected systems quickly
- Eradication: Removing threats from environment
- Recovery & lessons learned: Restoration and improvement
Crisis Management Team
Designated personnel with clear roles and responsibilities for managing business disruptions.
- Incident commander: Overall response coordination
- Technical lead: IT systems and data recovery
- Communications lead: Stakeholder notifications
- Legal/compliance: Regulatory reporting requirements
Incident Response Lifecycle
Six-phase approach to handling cybersecurity incidents effectively
Preparation
Establish incident response capabilities, train team members, and implement monitoring tools before incidents occur.
Documentation
Response procedures & playbooks
Training
Regular team exercises & drills
Tools
SIEM, EDR, forensic capabilities
Detection & Analysis
Identify potential security incidents through monitoring, alerts, and user reports, then analyze to determine scope and severity.
- Monitor security alerts and logs
- Validate and prioritize incidents
- Document initial findings
- Assess impact and scope
Containment
Limit the spread and impact of the incident through short-term and long-term containment strategies.
Short-term Actions
- Isolate affected systems
- Block malicious IPs/domains
- Disable compromised accounts
Long-term Actions
- Patch vulnerabilities
- Update security controls
- Strengthen monitoring
Eradication
Remove the threat from your environment completely, including malware, unauthorized access, and vulnerabilities.
Recovery
Restore systems to normal operations while monitoring for signs of attacker persistence or reinfection.
System Restoration
Rebuild or restore from clean backups, verify integrity, gradually return to production
Enhanced Monitoring
Increased surveillance for indicators of compromise or attacker return attempts
Post-Incident Activity
Conduct thorough review to document lessons learned and improve future incident response capabilities.
- Incident report: Complete documentation of timeline, actions, and outcomes
- Team debrief: What worked well, what needs improvement
- Process updates: Revise procedures based on lessons learned
- Security improvements: Implement controls to prevent recurrence
Crisis Communication Strategy
Managing stakeholder communications during incidents and disruptions
Customers
Transparent updates on service status and data protection
Timing: Within 24-72 hours of confirmed breach
Employees
Clear instructions on roles, responsibilities, and procedures
Timing: Immediate notification to response team
Regulators
Formal breach notifications per state and federal requirements
Timing: As required by law (often 72 hours)
Media
Prepared statements through designated spokesperson only
Timing: After customer and regulator notification
Breach Notification Requirements
Financial services firms must comply with multiple notification requirements:
- State laws: Notify affected individuals within 30-90 days (varies by state)
- GLBA: Report to primary federal regulator and law enforcement
- NYDFS: Notify within 72 hours of determination (for NY-regulated entities)
- Credit bureaus: Notify if breach affects 1,000+ individuals
Testing & Maintaining Your Plans
Regular testing ensures your plans work when you need them most
Tabletop Exercises
Discussion-based scenarios where team members walk through response procedures
Frequency: Quarterly
Simulation Drills
Hands-on exercises testing actual recovery procedures and system restoration
Frequency: Semi-annually
Plan Updates
Review and revise plans based on organizational changes and lessons learned
Frequency: Annually
Build Your Business Continuity Framework
Our comprehensive business continuity and incident response solutions help you prepare for, respond to, and recover from disruptions while maintaining regulatory compliance and customer trust.