BSI releases industry IT resilience standards

Updated business continuity guidelines for information communication technology issued

LONDON - The British Standards Institute (BSI) has issued new industry benchmarks for IT resilience, helping businesses to better manage and recover from evolving risks of disruption and knock-on stakeholder and reputational risks.

The new BS25777 paper looks specifically at risks to information communication technology (ICT) and supplements the June 2008 release of BS25999, providing a management framework for business continuity management (BCM).

"The BSI's latest standard in the area of continuity management focuses on the specific area of IT continuity that will help an organisation survive a crisis," says Mike Low, director of business standards at the BSI. "We have brought together a wide range of expertise to produce a robust best-practice guidance document that should help organisations regardless of size, complexity or sector."

Ron Miller, senior consultant at business continuity vendor SunGard, says: "In a world where consumers demand service faster than ever before, customers will think nothing of leaving their regular provider if they are unable to either access the information or the product they desire. If systems are down even for what is considered a short period of time, the result for the affected business can be critical."