ICT Emergency Response Planning Policy $-$ Natural Disaster Preparedness

Assume that there is an increased frequency of natural disasters your regions, your task is to develop an ICT Emergency Response Planning policy tailored to a mid$-$sized financial institution. The policy aims to ensure the continued operation of critical IT systems and data protection during and after a natural disaster.

Section $1$: Policy Mandates and Sub$-$Policies

Disaster Contingency Integration:

Mandate: Ensure integration of disaster contingency in the financial institution's ICT infrastructure planning and architecture, with specific consideration for the types of natural disasters that the institution is most likely to face.

Remote Work and Data Protection:

Sub$-$Policy: Verify the ability to support remote work during disasters, including secure access to critical systems and data, with specific guidance on how to test and evaluate the remote work capabilities of the organization's ICT systems.

Data Backup and Recovery:

Sub$-$Policy: Establish guidelines for regular data backup and recovery processes to minimize data loss and system downtime, with specific guidance on how to test and evaluate the data backup and recovery capabilities of the organization's ICT systems.

Communication Resilience:

Sub$-$Policy: Implement measures to ensure the availability of communication channels for staff and customers during emergencies, with specific guidance on how to communicate with stakeholders during an emergency.

Vendor Collaboration and Redundancy:

Sub$-$Policy: Formulate pre$-$negotiated arrangements with key vendors to ensure continuity of services in the event of disruptions, with specific guidance on how to evaluate the reliability of key vendors.

Section $2$: Stakeholder Interaction and Communication

Onsite IT Support and Critical Functions:

Sub$-$Policy: Determine which IT functions need onsite personnel during disasters to support critical financial operations, with specific guidance on how to prioritize the allocation of resources during an emergency.

Customer Engagement Plan:

Sub$-$Policy: Develop strategies for customers to interact with the financial institution during and after a natural disaster, with specific guidance on how to communicate with customers during an emergency.

Data Security and Confidentiality:

Sub$-$Policy: Establish protocols to ensure data security and confidentiality during remote work and disaster recovery efforts, with specific guidance on how to protect sensitive data from unauthorized access.

Emergency Email Communication:

Sub$-$Policy: Set guidelines for emergency email communication, ensuring effective dissemination of critical information, with specific guidance on how to prevent spam and phishing attacks.

The scope of this policy should cover only ICT related issues such as:

Ensure enterprise architects are including pandemic contingency in planning.

Verification of the ability for significantly increased telecommuting including bandwidth, VPN concentrator capacity$/$licensing$,$ ability to offer voice over IP and laptop$/$remote desktop availability.

Increased use of virtual meeting tools that facilitate video conference and desktop sharing capabilities.

Identify what tasks cannot be done remotely.

Pre$-$negotiated arrangements with key vendors in the event current licensing will not meet this change in work force habits.

Determine if any IT colleagues need to remain onsite to support critical operations.

Plan for how customers will interact with the organization in different ways.

Expectations concerning printing work documents on personal printers.

Expectations about sending work emails and documents to personal email accounts.

The creation of exercises to test the plan in advance.

Performing a retrospective review to identify and solve for issues encountered in the test.