Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery

Study ISC2 CC business continuity and disaster recovery: BIA, BCP, DRP, RTO, RPO, backups, tests, and recovery priorities.

Business continuity and disaster recovery are related but not interchangeable. CC questions usually test whether you can choose the right planning term and avoid treating a backup as a complete recovery strategy.

Core terms

Term Meaning
BIA Business impact analysis; identifies critical processes and disruption impact
BCP Business continuity plan; keeps essential business functions operating
DRP Disaster recovery plan; restores IT systems and data
RTO maximum acceptable time to restore
RPO maximum acceptable data loss measured in time
Backup copy of data; useful only if protected and tested
Tabletop discussion-based exercise to validate roles and decisions

How to choose

Stem wording Strong answer
identify critical business processes BIA
keep customer support operating during outage BCP
restore servers after a disaster DRP
determine acceptable downtime RTO
determine acceptable data loss RPO
prove backup works restore test

AI-security angle

The current ISC2 outline notes that AI systems can introduce continuity concerns such as model drift and the need to back up configurations and datasets. For CC, treat this as continuity basics: know what is critical, protect the supporting data/configuration, and validate recovery.

Common traps

  • Backup alone is not a plan.
  • High availability is not the same as disaster recovery.
  • RTO and RPO are business requirements, not product names.
  • A plan that has never been tested is weak.
Revised on Monday, June 15, 2026