As the Chief Information Security Officer, I suggest the following for a Hospital Business Continuity Plan (BCP). Executive Overview: Be precise and detailed and provide a thorough understanding of the program. Document Change Control: The table should be completed. Introduction: Include the overview, plan scope, and applicability that evaluate the appropriateness of cybersecurity frameworks for developing a cybersecurity program to align with business needs, plan objectives, and plan assumptions. Analyze various cyber threat models used to identify and protect against cybercrime threat vectors, motivations, and ideologies. Hospital Business Continuity Plan for Systems Hospital Business Continuity Plan for Systems Risk Assessment Matrix: Complete a Risk Assessment Matrix. Evaluate system risks, threats, vulnerabilities, practices, and processes to ensure the safety and security of the hospital information systems. Critical Business Functions Overview: Detail components that are c

Hospital Business Continuity Plan for Systems

Executive Overview

This document describes a cybersecurity business continuity plan for a hospital system and its importance. It states the possible risks that would be present in the system, their causes, and mitigation measures. A risk assessment matrix was used to indicate the risks, the areas that would be vulnerable to the risks, and the impact that would be experienced if the risks occurred. These include denial of service attacks, intrusions, human error, physical damage, masquerading, and malicious software. A business continuity plan (BCP) should be updated periodically to capture and mitigate new risks. Documenting change control is important in ensuring that the updates made on the cybersecurity BCP or the actual IT infrastructure are properly documented and prioritized. This helps to eliminate human errors and maintain the integrity of the BCP.

Document Change Control

The above template would be used to request changes in the cybersecurity BCP as well as the BCP process. It is grouped into three parts: requester information and items to be changed, classification of change, and risk assessment. The first part records the details of the person requesting change and the item to be changed. The second part classifies the priority for the change by checking on the importance of the change, its impact, and how complex it is to effect the change. The third part assesses the current risk level of the item to be changed, that is, the level of risk it poses to business continuity when/if the item is not changed immediately. After the requester has filled out the form, they return it to the IT department, where it goes through a documented process to decide on its priority for implementation.

Introduction

A business continuity plan is essential in ensuring that business operations are not brought to a halt to the point of rendering the business obsolete (Božić, 2023). Such a plan is made to cover all areas of the business, including IT. A BCP that is specifically prepared for IT systems is categorized under cybersecurity planning and response (Božić, 2023). A hospital is also a business; therefore, it requires a BCP. An IT BCP for a hospital would ensure that the hospital’s IT infrastructure is not disrupted, and in the event of a disruption, the situation is handled effectively to ensure that operations resume immediately (Ayatollahi & Shagerdi, 2017). Sasaki’s (2020) study on hospitals in Japan after an earthquake in 2011 showed that most hospitals were unable to resume operations for a long time because they lacked proper BCPs. Consequently, this emphasizes the importance of an up-to-date BCP for hospitals.

A cybersecurity BCP identifies the scope of the current IT infrastructure as the first step. The second step evaluates possible risks and impacts. The third step is to create and test a response plan. Lastly, it keeps refining the entire process for proper preparedness (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2022). The IT infrastructure includes users, systems, and data. Therefore, risk assessment analyzes risks that can arise in those three categories. This would also include educating system users on cybersecurity measures they should observe to keep the system secure. In addition, systems are configured to meet security needs. For example, a hospital network would contain a firewall with access control lists that ensure only authorized network traffic is allowed in the hospital’s private network. For software security, software patches should be updated in a timely manner to ensure that hackers do not exploit software vulnerable points.

Further, data security would be maintained through measures such as control assessment levels for users, passwords, backup, and antivirus. The IT department would handle incident response from IT support officers, escalating upwards to the chief security IT officer, depending on the severity of the impact. A detailed