Current through Register Vol. 46, No. 39, September 25, 2024
(a) As part of
its cybersecurity program, each covered entity shall establish written plans
that contain proactive measures to investigate and mitigate cybersecurity
events and to ensure operational resilience, including but not limited to
incident response, business continuity and disaster recovery plans.
(1) Incident response plan. Incident response
plans shall be reasonably designed to enable prompt response to, and recovery
from, any cybersecurity event materially affecting the confidentiality,
integrity or availability of the covered entity's information systems or the
continuing functionality of any aspect of the covered entity's business or
operations. Such plans shall address the following areas with respect to
different types of cybersecurity events, including disruptive events such as
ransomware incidents:
(i) the goals of the
incident response plan;
(ii) the
internal processes for responding to a cybersecurity event;
(iii) the definition of clear roles,
responsibilities and levels of decision-making authority;
(iv) external and internal communications and
information sharing;
(v)
identification of requirements for the remediation of any identified weaknesses
in information systems and associated controls;
(vi) documentation and reporting regarding
cybersecurity events and related incident response activities;
(vii) recovery from backups;
(viii) preparation of root cause analysis
that describes how and why the event occurred, what business impact it had, and
what will be done to prevent reoccurrence; and
(ix) updating of incident response plans as
necessary.
(2) Business
continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) plan. BCDR plans shall be reasonably
designed to ensure the availability and functionality of the covered entity's
information systems and material services and protect the covered entity's
personnel, assets and nonpublic information in the event of a
cybersecurity-related disruption to its normal business activities. Such plans
shall, at minimum:
(i) identify documents,
data, facilities, infrastructure, services, personnel and competencies
essential to the continued operations of the covered entity's
business;
(ii) identify the
supervisory personnel responsible for implementing each aspect of the BCDR
plan;
(iii) include a plan to
communicate with essential persons in the event of a cybersecurity-related
disruption to the operations of the covered entity, including employees,
counterparties, regulatory authorities, third - party service providers,
disaster recovery specialists, the senior governing body and any other persons
essential to the recovery of documentation and data and the resumption of
operations;
(iv) include procedures
for the timely recovery of critical data and information systems and to resume
operations as soon as reasonably possible following a cybersecurity-related
disruption to normal business activities;
(v) include procedures for backing up or
copying, with sufficient frequency, information essential to the operations of
the covered entity and storing such information offsite; and
(vi) identify third parties that are
necessary to the continued operations of the covered entity's information
systems.
(b)
Each covered entity shall ensure that current copies of the plans or relevant
portions therein are distributed or are otherwise accessible, including during
a cybersecurity event, to all employees necessary to implement such
plans.
(c) Each covered entity
shall provide relevant training to all employees responsible for implementing
the plans regarding their roles and responsibilities.
(d) Each covered entity shall periodically,
but at a minimum annually, test its:
(1)
incident response and BCDR plans with all staff and management critical to the
response, and shall revise the plan as necessary; and
(2) ability to restore its critical data and
information systems from backups.
(e) Each covered entity shall maintain
backups necessary to restore material operations. The backups shall be
adequately protected from unauthorized alterations or destruction.
