As the CISO I understand that the availability of systems is very important to business continuity,and customer trust. Availability, as one of the three pillars of the CIA (Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability) Triad. There are many strategies that we can employ to mitigate disruptions caused by hackers, natural disasters, and even human errors. 

In order to minimize risk of system downtime, we need to implement redundant infrastructure. High Availability solutions like failover clusters and load balancing help keep data flowing. Redundant data centers can ensure that if one location experiences an outage, another can take over. What may work even better is Cloud-based backup solutions. This way your backups are stored somewhere else. 

I would ensure swift patch management. A rigorous patch management program will make sure that security updates are applied swiftly. Another important policy that is needed is a well planned disaster recovery plan. 

Disruptions are unavoidable and a disaster recovery plan can help to maintain company operations. The DRP will lay out recovery time objectives and help organizations set standards for acceptable downtime and data loss. I would need to conduct table top exercises to ensure employees know what to do when disruption comes.

My organization will also have to hire SOC analysts and incident responders to monitor and respond to security issues. Proactive monitoring of system performance and security is necessary for maintaining availability. Establishing a 24/7 Security Operations Center (SOC) ensures rapid detection and incident response. SIEM tools help monitor the network.  Automated alerts enable security teams to act quickly. They can contain threats before they escalate into major disruptions.

Finally, employee training is a must. Human error is probably the largest reason for security incidents that affect availability. Security awareness training educates employees on social engineering threats like phishing attacks, and quishing attacks. Again tabletop exercises help to prepare and ensure that employees understand their roles when security incidents occur.

Ensuring availability is a very important part of a CISO’s responsibilities. These are just a few of the protections that I would implement at my organization.