Introduction
As wildfires, floods, and extreme weather events surge across the globe, the physical threats to digital infrastructure are becoming impossible to ignore. Over the past few months alone, data centers have gone offline due to wildfire smoke, offices have flooded due to unprecedented rainfall, and power outages have disrupted entire regional networks.
In this changing landscape, organizations are waking up to a hard truth: your business continuity and disaster recovery plans are only as good as your ability to handle real-world disruptions. Cybersecurity often takes center stage in resilience planning, but nature remains one of the most unpredictable and damaging adversaries. And when natural disasters strike, businesses without a tested disaster recovery (DR) strategy are left scrambling.
The New Normal: Disasters Are Disrupting Data
It’s no longer theoretical. In recent months:
- A data center in the Southwest was forced offline due to rolling blackouts from heat-related grid strain
- A mid-sized healthcare provider lost access to electronic medical records for three days after its on-prem server room flooded
- Several businesses in hurricane zones reported partial data loss due to untested backups and insufficient redundancy
These incidents underscore how business operations, customer trust, and regulatory compliance all hinge on whether organizations are prepared for more than just cyberattacks.
Disaster Recovery Is More Than a Backup
Many companies think a cloud backup equals a disaster recovery plan. But when disaster strikes, you need more than access to your data. You need a clear, practiced process for restoring systems, accessing critical services, and communicating across teams.
A strong DR plan should include:
- Data redundancy across geographically diverse regions
- Recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) aligned with business needs
- Cloud failover strategies to quickly spin up replicas of key services
- Emergency communication protocols to ensure continuity across remote and hybrid teams
- Regular testing and tabletop exercises to validate that your plan actually works under pressure
Without these pieces in place, recovery becomes a best-guess operation at the worst possible time.
What Organizations Can Do Now
You don’t have to wait for disaster to strike to build resilience. Start by:
- Auditing your existing BC/DR plan to ensure it addresses both cyber and physical threats
- Identifying critical systems and data that must remain operational during an outage
- Reviewing data storage practices, especially if you rely on a single geographic region
- Testing your plan, ideally through a tabletop exercise or simulated outage
- Assigning clear responsibilities so everyone knows what to do when time is short
Secutor helps organizations develop and refine disaster recovery strategies that account for today’s complex risk landscape. From cloud continuity to hybrid infrastructure recovery, we bring together technical expertise and practical planning to reduce downtime and protect what matters.
In Closing
In a world where the next threat could be digital or natural, resilience is about readiness for both. The rising tide of natural disasters has shown that business continuity cannot be confined to the IT department alone. It is a company-wide commitment that requires planning, testing, and leadership.
If your organization is overdue for a disaster recovery review or needs help building a modern, threat-aware continuity plan, contact Secutor for a free consultation. Let’s ensure your data doesn’t go underwater when the storm hits.
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Secutor is made up of a team of 100+ world-class problem solvers, dedicated to keeping the networks behind your business protected, audit-ready and running efficiently. Our proven track record of successfully exceeding client expectations is achieved through the combination of our methodical approach, advanced technologies, subject matter expertise, and synergy with client team members.
