A five step guide helps owners work out what a week offline would cost and what to do in the first hour of an incident
Chamber member Andisa IT has published The 2026 Disaster Recovery Workbook, a practical guide to help business owners prepare for a cyber attack, system failure or major outage.
The timing is important. The latest government Cyber Security Breaches Survey found that 43% of UK businesses identified a breach or attack in the past 12 months, rising to 65% for medium sized firms. Yet only a third have a business continuity plan that covers cyber security, falling to 29% among micro businesses with fewer than ten staff. The NCSC handled 204 nationally significant incidents in a year, up from 89 the year before.
The workbook aims to sit between advice that is too technical to act on and advice too vague to be useful. Every figure is traced to a named source, including the NCSC, Verizon, Hiscox and Sophos. Owners work through five steps: identifying the systems that matter most, backing them up securely, building a tested recovery plan, assigning roles and responsibilities, and reviewing regularly. The recovery plan includes a "first hour" checklist and a contacts page designed to be printed and kept away from the computer.
A Downtime Calculator helps owners put a figure on the risk. In the worked example, a business with a £1.2m turnover and 15 staff loses around £25,700 in a five day outage, before counting lost customers or reputational damage. The workbook was written and checked by Andy Morrison, Managing Director of Andisa IT, who has more than 44 years' experience in the electronics and IT industry.
Martin Mann, Chief Executive of Harrogate District Chamber of Commerce, said:
"Many of our members are small businesses where the owner is also the finance team and the IT department. A plan on paper, kept somewhere you can reach without a computer, can mean losing days rather than weeks. This workbook is a sensible place to start, and I would encourage every member to set aside an hour to complete it."
The workbook is designed to be completed in about an hour with whoever knows your systems best, and reviewed every six months.
About Andisa IT
Andisa IT Consultants Ltd is based at Cardale Park, Harrogate. To get a copy of the workbook, call 01423 290029, email supportdesk@andisa.net or visit www.andisa.net.
