Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP)

Security+ 🏆 • Security Operations 🛡️ Difficulty: free

Definition

A Disaster Recovery Plan is a documented and tested set of steps for restoring IT systems and data after a major outage. It focuses on how technology services recover, including priorities, responsibilities, recovery targets, and verification.

Examples

  • A data center outage occurs. The DRP guides failover to a secondary site and restores critical systems to meet a 4-hour RTO.
  • Ransomware encrypts a file server. The DRP uses immutable backups to restore clean data and verifies systems before reconnecting to the network.

Discover 🔎

Disaster recovery is the technology side of getting back on your feet after a serious disruption. When systems go down, teams need more than good intentions. They need clear priorities, prebuilt recovery paths, and rehearsed steps that work under pressure. A Disaster Recovery Plan turns recovery into a repeatable process instead of improvisation.

Remember: DRP is about restoring IT services. Business continuity is about keeping the business operating. They work together, but they are not the same thing.
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