This policy establishes the formal framework for the backup and restoration of all critical data, systems, and applications. It ensures data is protected from loss and defines clear recovery objectives (RTO/RPO) to support business continuity and satisfy ISO 27001, DORA, and NIS2 resilience requirements.
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Ensure Business Continuity: Protect organizational data from loss due to deletion, corruption, or cyberattacks with a structured and reliable backup strategy.
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Meet Recovery Objectives (RTO/RPO): Define and test against clear recovery time and point objectives to ensure critical systems are restored within acceptable business timelines.
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Strengthen Ransomware Defense: Implement secure, encrypted, and logically separated backups to ensure you can recover from a destructive ransomware attack.
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Achieve Audit-Ready Compliance: Provide auditors with documented procedures, schedules, and test results for backup operations.
Read Full Overview
The Backup and Restore Policy by Clarysec outlines critical requirements for safeguarding organizational data against loss from deletion, corruption, or cyberattacks. This comprehensive policy is essential for maintaining operational resilience, data integrity, and business continuity. It establishes a standardized framework that not only protects data but also defines clear Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) parameters to align recovery expectations with business needs.
What's Inside
- Purpose and Scope
- Roles and Responsibilities
- Master Backup Schedule & Governance
- Policy Implementation Requirements
- Storage and Media Controls
- Restoration and Testing Procedures
- Risk Treatment and Exceptions
Built for Leaders, By Leaders
This policy was authored by a security leader with 25+ years of experience deploying and auditing ISMS frameworks for global enterprises. It's designed not just to be a document, but a defensible framework that stands up to auditor scrutiny.
Authored by an expert holding:
Framework Compliance
🛡️ Supported Standards & Frameworks
This product is aligned with the following compliance frameworks, with detailed clause and control mappings.
| Framework | Covered Clauses / Controls |
|---|---|
| ISO/IEC 27001:2022 | Clauses 6.1.3, 8.1 |
| ISO/IEC 27002:2022 | Controls 8.13, 5.28, 5.29 |
| NIST SP 800-53 Rev.5 | CP-9, CP-10, SI-12, MP-6 |
| EU GDPR | Article 32, Recital 49 |
| EU NIS2 | Article 21(2)(c-e) |
| EU DORA | Articles 10, 11 |
| COBIT 2019 | DSS01, DSS04, MEA03 |
Part of a Complete ISMS Toolkit
This policy is one of 37 documents in our complete toolkit. When implemented as a set, our framework helps you achieve comprehensive compliance across major standards.
100%
ISO 27001
95%
NIST
88%
NIS2
75%
DORA
70%
GDPR
Related Policies
This policy ensures operational resilience is embedded into your ISMS when implemented with the following documents.
Risk Management Policy (P6)
Identifies risk-based prioritization for backup protection and RTO/RPO targets.
Asset Management Policy (P12)
Ensures all critical systems eligible for backup are inventoried and tracked.
Data Classification & Labeling Policy (P13)
Guides which data categories require specific backup and retention schedules.
Data Retention and Disposal Policy (P14)
Coordinates backup retention with legal holds and secure disposal of media.
Incident Response Policy (P30)
Is activated during backup failures, restoration issues, or data compromise.
About This Policy
The Clarysec Backup and Restore Policy is a critical component for ensuring the operational resilience and business continuity of your organization. It directly addresses ISO 27001 Annex A control 8.13 by establishing a formal, auditable framework for protecting data against loss, corruption, or ransomware attacks. The policy mandates clear Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) based on business impact analysis.
By implementing this policy, you create a defensible strategy for data recovery that satisfies the stringent requirements of DORA, NIS2, and GDPR. It requires regular, documented restoration testing, secure off-site and encrypted storage, and immutable backups to ensure your data is always recoverable. This policy provides the structure needed to confidently manage and protect your most valuable information assets.
