Facing a Cyberattack? Here Is How to Rethink Recovery Quickly

Five Steps to Building a Resilient Cyber Recovery Plan

You may have just been attacked. Or maybe your team has realised that your recovery plans do not cover modern ransomware threats.

If so, it is time to shift your thinking. Traditional disaster recovery focuses on restoring infrastructure as quickly as possible. Cyber recovery is about preventing reinfection, protecting evidence, and restoring trust.

Here is a practical guide to help you reset and move forward with clarity.

Step 1: Ask These Six Questions Today

Bring your executive team together and get honest answers to the following:

1. Do we know exactly what was compromised and how far the attack spread?
2. Can we recover to a clean environment that is isolated from production?
3. Are our backups protected and verifiably untouched?
4. Who owns the cyber recovery process from end to end?
5. How are we defining success in recovery, by uptime, or by total threat containment?
6. Should we have something about understanding your minimal viable company/business

If you cannot answer these with confidence, you are not ready to restore.

Step 2: Build or Validate a Cyber Recovery Playbook

A proper CR plan should include:

• Cleanroom recovery procedures that isolate systems before restoring them
• A forensics-first approach to investigate before taking action
• Recovery point prioritisation based on business impact, not just technical architecture
• Cross-functional ownership, with named roles across security, IT, legal, and communications

Step 3: Avoid These Critical Mistakes

Three common pitfalls derail recovery efforts:

1. Restoring before the full extent of the compromise is known
2. Relying on backup systems that may have also been breached
3. Using DR teams and tools that are not designed for cyber events

Cyber recovery needs a different playbook, with different tools and different expectations.

Step 4: Redefine What Success Looks Like

Meeting your RTO is no longer enough. A successful cyber recovery should be measured by:

• Whether reinfection was prevented
• Whether data loss was minimised
• Whether legal and regulatory exposure was contained
• Whether customer trust remained intact

Every recovery plan should make these outcomes part of the SLA.

Step 5: Invest in the Right Capabilities

Enterprise Strategy Group data shows cyber recovery budgets are outpacing disaster recovery spending. The reasons are clear.

Budget priorities now include:

• Immutable and isolated backup systems
• Dedicated cleanroom infrastructure (on-premise or cloud based)
• Runbooks and rehearsal exercises for cyber-specific events
• Cross-training between IT and security teams

Waiting to invest until after an incident is a false economy.

Operational Resilience Starts Here

Being cyber ready is not about having the right documentation. It is about being able to act with speed, clarity, and control when it matters most.

Cyber recovery is a capability that must be built, tested, and led from the top. There is no substitute for preparation, and no margin for improvisation once an incident begins.

Need help building a CR plan that works under real pressure?

SureLogik delivers hands-on support and implementation for immutable backup solutions, incident response planning, cleanroom implementation, and post-attack CR playbook design.

Start with a CR readiness review.
Schedule your session with SureLogik

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