As I write, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is in its third day and certain topics in disaster preparation come to mind. How would one prepare? I don't mean in the sense of in-country preparation for invasion by a power next door. It's prudent to consider preparations for companies, nonprofits or individuals in a NATO country, France or some other nation not aligned with Moscow interests. Countries and territories unrelated to local fighting could be affected far away from events in this ever-more-connected world.
1. DOS/DDOS: do you have Cloudflare or some similar service? Do you have an in-house equivalent?
2. Have you done backups? Are your backups airgapped from all relevant networks?
3. Have you done infrastructure backups (virtual nodes, switches, snapshots etc.)?
4. Email strategy: if applicable, what if your IP is banned for spamming and you didn't do that?
5. Has patching been regular?
6. Is there a communications tree established for phone contact?
7. Are there alternatives thought out if cell service is unavailable?
8. Are there alternatives thought out if internet service is unavailable?
And an entirely separate post would be nice for cell phones alone. Think of all the things many of us rely on a phone app to control or store. From phone number and contact lists to secure sign-on passcodes to garage door openers, has anyone thought of a plan B for all that? First, a backup locally available is needed for every phone, plus a strategy as to how to do every separate job currently handled by that Android, iPhone or whatever. And since VOIP is computer-operated, suppose servers for "landline" phones become intermittent (some organizations could need a radio alternative)?
An earlier post of mine speculated on cyberwarfare directed at electronic and computer services of individuals, ignoring the armed services protecting them physically and attempting to outflank old-fashioned protection. I don't think the NATO-aligned countries are in significant danger from this sort of thing, but components of such an approach could appear in the strategies of ambitious military powers or desperate advocacy groups.
So it makes as much sense to what-if these potential matters just as in the case of what the insurance agent wants you to think about: fire, flood, tornado, typhoon/hurricane or earthquake.
