Your organization may have reliable backups, a disaster recovery plan, and several cybersecurity tools in place. But can you prove that your critical technology services will recover when a major disruption occurs?

 

That question is becoming increasingly important as businesses depend on cloud infrastructure, interconnected applications, external technology providers, and digital operations.

 

A successful cyberattack, failed software update, network outage, or infrastructure failure can interrupt essential services. Even when backup systems are available, organizations may discover that recovery procedures are incomplete, supporting applications are unavailable, or important technology dependencies were never documented.

 

These problems highlight the difference between having recovery plans and maintaining genuine ICT readiness.

 

ISO 27031 requirements provide a useful starting point for understanding the processes, safeguards, and recovery capabilities organizations should consider when preparing information and communication technology (ICT) for business continuity.

 

ISO/IEC 27031:2025 provides international guidance for improving ICT readiness for business continuity (IRBC). It helps organizations align technology resilience with business priorities, establish appropriate recovery arrangements, and evaluate whether ICT services can support operations during disruptions.

 

Unlike a prescriptive control catalog, ISO 27031 provides a framework that organizations can adapt to their operating environment and continuity objectives.

 

In this guide, we examine the key ICT continuity control areas associated with ISO 27031, the evidence organizations should maintain, practical implementation examples, and best practices for strengthening technology resilience.

 

 

What are ISO 27031 requirements?

 

ISO 27031 requirements commonly refer to the ICT readiness practices, recovery objectives, and continuity safeguards organizations implement using ISO/IEC 27031 guidance.

 

The current edition, ISO/IEC 27031:2025, is titled Cybersecurity — Information and communication technology readiness for business continuity.

 

Published in May 2025, the standard provides a framework for improving an organization’s ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disruptions affecting ICT services.

 

It addresses the relationship between technology readiness and broader business continuity objectives, including minimum business continuity objectives, recovery point objectives, and recovery time objectives.

 

However, there is an important distinction between recommended practices and mandatory requirements.

 

Are ISO 27031 requirements mandatory?

 

ISO/IEC 27031 is a guidance standard. It is not a standalone accredited certification standard that requires every organization to implement an identical set of controls.

 

Its guidance can support organizations in developing appropriate ICT continuity arrangements based on business needs, technology dependencies, and risk exposure.

 

Specific obligations may still arise through contracts, regulations, procurement requirements, or internal policies.

 

For example, a financial institution may be required to maintain certain operational resilience capabilities under applicable financial regulations. ISO 27031 can help inform its ICT continuity practices, but adopting the standard does not automatically demonstrate compliance with those regulations.

 

Organizations should therefore distinguish between the guidance provided by ISO 27031 and the binding requirements that apply to their operations.

 

Key ICT continuity control areas under ISO 27031

 

ISO 27031 supports a systematic approach to ICT readiness rather than prescribing one universal technical control baseline.

 

The following control areas translate the standard’s objectives into practical safeguards that organizations can assess, implement, and monitor.

 

These are implementation categories, not official numbered ISO 27031 controls.

 

1. ICT service identification and criticality controls

 

Organizations cannot protect or recover technology services effectively without understanding which systems are essential to business operations.

 

ICT service identification controls help organizations maintain visibility into the applications, infrastructure, information, and external services supporting important business activities.

 

What organizations should establish

 

An effective ICT service inventory should identify relevant technology assets and explain their relationship to critical business services.

 

This includes applications, databases, network infrastructure, cloud environments, identity services, communication systems, and external technology providers.

 

The inventory should also record ownership, operational importance, and relevant dependencies.

 

For example, an e-commerce platform may rely on a payment gateway, inventory database, authentication service, and external delivery integration.

 

Restoring the website alone may not restore the complete customer purchasing process.

 

Best practices

 

Maintain a centralized inventory of critical ICT services and review it when systems are introduced, modified, or retired.

 

Assign accountable service owners and establish a consistent method for classifying service criticality.

 

Dependency mapping should identify shared infrastructure and potential single points of failure.

 

Recommended evidence: ICT service inventory, dependency diagrams, criticality classifications, and service ownership records.

 

2. ICT continuity risk assessment controls

 

ICT continuity risk assessment controls help organizations identify situations that could prevent important technology services from operating or recovering within acceptable limits.

 

These assessments should consider the potential consequences of disruptions, not only the likelihood of technical failure.

 

What organizations should assess

 

Relevant risk scenarios may include ransomware, cloud outages, power failures, storage corruption, network failures, unauthorized configuration changes, and supplier disruptions.

 

Organizations should evaluate existing safeguards and determine whether additional risk treatment is necessary.

 

For example, a company may discover that several critical applications depend on one identity provider.

 

Although the applications operate in separate environments, an outage affecting the identity provider could prevent employees and customers from accessing all of them.

 

This shared dependency represents a continuity risk that should be evaluated.

 

Best practices

 

Use consistent risk assessment criteria and consider both technology and business consequences.

 

Assess significant changes in infrastructure, application architecture, or supplier relationships.

 

Document risk owners, treatment decisions, and unresolved findings.

 

Recommended evidence: ICT continuity risk assessments, risk register entries, treatment plans, and approved risk acceptance decisions.

 

3. Recovery objective and service capacity controls

 

Recovery planning should establish measurable expectations for restoring ICT services.

 

ISO 27031 addresses three important business continuity objectives: MBCO, RTO, and RPO.

 

Establish recovery objectives that support business operations

 

Recovery Time Objective (RTO) defines the target period for resuming an activity or service following a disruption.

 

Recovery Point Objective (RPO) identifies the point in time to which information must be recovered.

 

Minimum Business Continuity Objective (MBCO) establishes the minimum acceptable level of products or services that must be maintained or restored during a disruption.

 

Organizations should use business continuity priorities to determine appropriate technology recovery capabilities.

 

For example, a customer payment service may require a short recovery period and minimal data loss, while a historical reporting system may tolerate a longer interruption.

 

Best practices

 

Obtain business approval for recovery objectives and confirm that technical recovery strategies can support them.

 

Avoid selecting recovery targets solely because existing infrastructure makes them convenient.

 

Document the assumptions used to establish recovery objectives and review them when business requirements change.

 

Recommended evidence: Approved recovery objectives, business service requirements, technical feasibility assessments, and recovery capacity documentation.

 

4. Data backup and recovery integrity controls

 

Backups are important components of ICT continuity, but their existence does not guarantee successful recovery.

 

Organizations need safeguards that protect recovery data and demonstrate that information can be restored when required.

 

What effective backup controls should address

 

Backup arrangements should reflect the importance of the information, acceptable data loss, recovery objectives, and relevant cybersecurity threats.

 

Organizations should consider backup frequency, storage locations, access restrictions, retention arrangements, and protection against unauthorized modification.

 

For example, ransomware may compromise production systems and attempt to delete accessible backups.

 

Recovery arrangements that include appropriately protected, isolated, or immutable backup copies can help reduce this exposure.

 

Best practices

 

Use backup methods appropriate to the organization’s risk profile and recovery needs.

 

Protect backup management accounts with strong access controls and monitor important administrative activities.

 

Conduct restoration tests to verify data integrity, application compatibility, and recovery performance.

 

A successful backup job should not be treated as equivalent to a successful restoration.

 

Recommended evidence: Backup policies, configuration records, monitoring results, restoration test reports, and identified recovery weaknesses.

 

5. ICT infrastructure resilience controls

 

Infrastructure resilience controls help organizations reduce the impact of failures affecting servers, storage, networks, power supplies, and other supporting technology.

 

The appropriate level of resilience depends on the criticality of the services involved.

 

What organizations should consider

 

Potential safeguards include redundant network connections, resilient storage, alternate computing environments, appropriate power protection, and infrastructure monitoring.

 

However, redundancy should not be confused with complete resilience.

 

Two servers operating in the same data center may still be affected by a shared power failure, network disruption, or physical incident.

 

Similarly, infrastructure deployed across multiple locations may depend on a common identity service or management platform.

 

Best practices

 

Evaluate shared failure points when designing resilient infrastructure.

 

Use appropriate separation between primary and recovery environments.

 

Verify that recovery arrangements have sufficient processing capacity and connectivity to support required business services.

 

Recommended evidence: Infrastructure architecture diagrams, redundancy assessments, capacity plans, failover configurations, and resilience test results.

 

 

6. ICT incident detection and recovery activation controls

 

Recovery arrangements are less effective when organizations cannot identify a serious disruption or determine when recovery procedures should begin.

 

Incident detection and recovery activation controls help teams recognize disruptions, evaluate their impact, and initiate appropriate continuity actions.

 

What organizations should establish

 

Organizations should define the conditions that trigger escalation and recovery activities. These conditions may involve service unavailability, loss of data integrity, infrastructure failure, or a cybersecurity incident affecting critical operations.

 

Recovery activation decisions should involve authorized personnel and consider the consequences of moving services to an alternative environment.

 

For example, immediately restoring systems after ransomware detection may create additional problems if the underlying compromise has not been contained.

 

Cybersecurity response and ICT recovery teams should coordinate their activities to avoid restoring compromised systems.

 

Best practices

 

Establish documented escalation thresholds and recovery activation responsibilities.

 

Integrate ICT recovery procedures with incident management processes.

 

Ensure that recovery decisions consider security, operational priorities, and business impact.

 

Recommended evidence: Incident classification procedures, escalation records, recovery activation decisions, and incident exercise findings.

 

7. Application and service restoration controls

 

Restoring infrastructure does not necessarily restore the business applications that depend on it.

 

Application recovery controls address the technical and operational steps needed to return important ICT services to an acceptable operating state.

 

What recovery procedures should cover

 

Recovery procedures should consider the sequence in which systems are restored. This may include infrastructure availability, database recovery, identity services, application configuration, external integrations, and service validation.

 

Organizations should identify technical prerequisites and establish criteria for confirming that a recovered service is ready for business use.

 

For example, a restored customer relationship management application may still be unusable if its database connections or authentication services remain unavailable.

 

Best practices

 

Document recovery sequences and important system dependencies.

 

Maintain procedures that authorized recovery personnel can follow during stressful incidents.

 

Include application owners and business representatives in recovery validation activities.

 

Recommended evidence: Recovery runbooks, restoration procedures, dependency records, technical validation results, and business acceptance records.

 

8. Third-party ICT continuity controls

 

External technology providers can create important continuity dependencies. Organizations may rely on cloud infrastructure, telecommunications providers, managed IT services, software platforms, and external data processing services.

 

These dependencies should be considered when developing ICT readiness arrangements.

 

What organizations should evaluate

 

Supplier continuity assessments should consider service availability, recovery capabilities, contractual commitments, incident communication arrangements, and relevant dependencies.

 

Organizations should understand which recovery responsibilities belong to the supplier and which remain with the customer.

 

For example, a cloud provider may maintain resilient infrastructure while the customer remains responsible for application architecture, data protection, and recovery configuration.

 

Failure to understand these responsibilities can create significant recovery gaps.

 

Best practices

 

Evaluate critical suppliers before onboarding and reassess them when material changes occur.

 

Review relevant service agreements, recovery commitments, and supplier continuity evidence.

 

Develop appropriate contingency arrangements for dependencies that could significantly affect business operations.

 

Recommended evidence: Supplier continuity assessments, service agreements, shared responsibility documentation, and supplier risk treatment records.

 

9. Recovery testing and assurance controls

 

A recovery plan provides limited assurance until the organization demonstrates that its recovery capabilities work.

 

Testing helps identify weaknesses in technical procedures, infrastructure capacity, team coordination, and service dependencies.

 

What recovery testing should demonstrate

 

Testing should evaluate whether important ICT services can be restored within established objectives and whether recovered systems operate correctly.

 

Different exercises may include backup restoration, application failover, alternate environment activation, communications testing, or coordinated recovery scenarios.

 

Organizations should select testing methods based on service criticality and relevant risks.

 

For example, a test may confirm that a database can be restored within the required time but reveal that the application cannot reconnect because an important configuration is missing.

 

Best practices

 

Define test objectives, acceptance criteria, and responsibilities before conducting exercises.

 

Record actual recovery performance rather than relying only on completion status.

 

Document identified weaknesses and verify corrective actions through appropriate follow-up activities.

 

Recommended evidence: Recovery test plans, exercise results, measured recovery performance, findings, and remediation verification records.

 

10. ICT readiness monitoring and change management controls

 

Technology environments change continuously, and recovery arrangements can become outdated when those changes are not reflected in continuity planning.

 

ICT readiness monitoring and change management controls help organizations maintain alignment between their current technology environment and documented recovery capabilities.

 

What organizations should monitor

 

Important changes may include application migrations, infrastructure upgrades, new integrations, supplier changes, altered business priorities, and updated security requirements.

 

For example, an organization may migrate an application to a new cloud environment but continue relying on recovery procedures written for its previous infrastructure.

 

The recovery plan may remain approved even though its technical instructions are no longer usable.

 

Best practices

 

Include continuity impact assessments in relevant technology change processes.

 

Review recovery documentation after significant architectural changes.

 

Monitor outstanding continuity risks, overdue corrective actions, and the status of important recovery controls.

 

Recommended evidence: Change assessments, updated recovery procedures, control review records, and remediation reports.

 

ISO 27031 ICT continuity controls summary

 

The following table brings together the practical control areas and the evidence organizations can use to evaluate implementation.

 

ICT continuity control area	Primary objective	Recommended evidence
Service identification	Identify important ICT services and dependencies	Service inventory and dependency maps
ICT risk assessment	Identify and evaluate continuity risks	Risk assessments and treatment records
Recovery objectives	Establish measurable recovery expectations	Approved RTO, RPO, and MBCO documentation
Backup and data recovery	Protect and restore important information	Backup records and restoration test results
Infrastructure resilience	Reduce exposure to infrastructure failures	Architecture reviews and resilience tests
Incident and recovery activation	Initiate coordinated recovery activities	Escalation and activation records
Application restoration	Restore complete ICT services	Recovery runbooks and validation results
Third-party continuity	Manage critical external dependencies	Supplier assessments and continuity agreements
Recovery assurance	Verify recovery capabilities	Exercise reports and corrective actions
Readiness monitoring	Maintain continuity arrangements as systems change	Change reviews and monitoring records

 

These categories represent practical implementation guidance. They should not be presented as official ISO 27031 control identifiers or a complete compliance baseline.

 

How to assess ISO 27031 control effectiveness

 

Organizations should evaluate ICT readiness based on demonstrated recovery capability rather than documentation alone.

 

A control may be formally approved but still fail to deliver its intended result.

 

For example, a backup policy may require daily backups, but restoration tests may show that the recovered application cannot operate without additional configuration.

 

This means the organization has documented backup requirements without fully demonstrating recovery readiness.

 

Use a four-level control maturity model

 

The following maturity model can help organizations evaluate implementation progress.

 

Maturity level	Description	Example
Level 1: Ad hoc	Recovery activities depend on individual knowledge	Recovery procedures are undocumented
Level 2: Documented	Policies and recovery procedures exist	Recovery plans are approved but rarely tested
Level 3: Implemented	Recovery safeguards are operating and periodically tested	Teams perform scheduled recovery exercises
Level 4: Measured	Recovery capabilities are monitored and improved using evidence	Test results inform corrective actions and management decisions

 

This is an illustrative assessment model developed for practical use, not an official ISO 27031 maturity scale.

 

Organizations should assess each important control area separately because overall program maturity may hide significant weaknesses.

 

Measure recovery performance against approved objectives

 

Recovery performance should be evaluated against the objectives established for the relevant business service.

 

For example, consider an application with an approved RTO of two hours.

 

If a recovery exercise takes three hours, the organization should investigate the difference rather than treating the exercise as successful simply because the application was eventually restored.

 

The review may identify problems involving infrastructure capacity, incomplete procedures, unavailable personnel, or external service dependencies.

 

Corrective actions should address the causes of the delay.

 

Practical example: ICT continuity controls for a healthcare organization

 

Consider a healthcare organization that relies on electronic health records, laboratory systems, patient scheduling, and network connectivity.

 

The organization has documented recovery plans and performs routine backups.

 

However, a simulated infrastructure outage reveals that several systems depend on one authentication service.

 

Although the electronic health record database can be restored, authorized employees cannot access the application until the authentication service becomes available.

 

Identifying the control gap

 

The primary weakness is not necessarily the backup process.

 

The organization has failed to account for a critical service dependency when developing its recovery strategy.

 

The incident highlights weaknesses in ICT dependency mapping, recovery sequencing, and service validation.

 

Applying appropriate safeguards

 

The organization updates its dependency records to identify the authentication service as a critical recovery component.

 

It revises recovery procedures to establish the correct restoration sequence and evaluates whether additional resilience measures are necessary.

 

The organization also updates its testing procedures to verify that authorized staff can access recovered applications.

 

Demonstrating improved readiness

 

During the next recovery exercise, the organization evaluates the complete service rather than only the database.

 

It records the time required to restore access, validates application functionality, and documents any remaining weaknesses.

 

This provides stronger evidence that the recovery arrangements can support business operations.

 

The scenario is illustrative and does not describe an actual customer incident or an ISO case study.

 

Best practices for maintaining effective ICT continuity controls

 

Once organizations have established appropriate safeguards, the next challenge is maintaining their effectiveness as technology and business requirements evolve.

 

Protect the recovery environment from the same threats as production

 

Recovery infrastructure can become a target during cyberattacks. If production and recovery environments share administrative accounts, security weaknesses, or unrestricted network access, a single compromise may affect both.

 

Organizations should evaluate appropriate isolation, access restrictions, monitoring, and protection for recovery resources.

 

Recovery security should be considered during system design rather than added after an incident.

 

Avoid recovery dependencies that cannot be met during an outage

 

Recovery procedures sometimes assume that systems, people, or communication channels will remain available.

 

For example, a recovery team may store critical instructions in a platform that becomes inaccessible during the disruption.

 

Organizations should identify these assumptions and establish appropriate alternatives. Important recovery documentation should be available to authorized personnel under the conditions in which it may be needed.

 

Include security validation before returning systems to production

 

Restoring service availability is important, but returning compromised or unverified systems to production may create additional risks.

 

Recovery procedures should include appropriate checks for system integrity, configuration, access controls, and relevant security concerns.

 

Business owners should confirm that restored services meet operational requirements before normal processing resumes.

 

Treat failed recovery exercises as improvement opportunities

 

Recovery testing should not be designed only to produce successful results. Realistic exercises may identify problems involving capacity, dependencies, procedures, or team coordination.

 

Organizations should encourage accurate reporting and use findings to improve recovery capabilities.

 

A failed exercise that identifies a serious weakness before an actual incident can provide significant operational value.

 

Maintain evidence that demonstrates operational readiness

 

Documentation should help organizations understand what was implemented, whether it worked, and what improvements remain necessary.

 

Useful evidence may include restoration logs, exercise results, system configuration records, risk treatment decisions, and corrective action verification.

 

Maintaining organized evidence also helps management evaluate readiness and supports relevant internal or external assessments.

 

Common ISO 27031 control weaknesses and how to address them

 

The following examples show how organizations can identify gaps and select practical corrective actions.

 

Common weakness	Potential consequence	Recommended corrective action
Incomplete ICT inventory	Critical systems are excluded from recovery planning	Establish service ownership and dependency mapping
Unverified backup restoration	Data may not be recoverable when needed	Perform restoration testing
Shared infrastructure failure points	Multiple services may fail together	Evaluate infrastructure separation and resilience
Outdated recovery instructions	Recovery teams may follow incorrect procedures	Review plans after material technology changes
Missing supplier continuity information	External outages may delay recovery	Assess critical supplier recovery arrangements
Unclear recovery activation authority	Decisions may be delayed during incidents	Define escalation and authorization responsibilities
Recovery tests without acceptance criteria	Results may not demonstrate readiness	Establish measurable test objectives
Unresolved continuity findings	Known weaknesses remain untreated	Assign owners and track corrective actions

 

Organizations should prioritize these weaknesses according to business impact, risk exposure, and the importance of the affected ICT services.

 

ISO 27031 readiness checklist for internal assessments

 

An internal assessment should examine both control design and operational effectiveness.

 

The following checklist can support a structured review.

 

Assessment question	Evidence to review
Are critical ICT services identified and assigned owners?	Service inventory and ownership records
Are important technical dependencies documented?	Dependency diagrams and architecture records
Have significant ICT continuity risks been evaluated?	Risk assessments and treatment plans
Are recovery objectives approved by relevant business owners?	Recovery objective documentation
Can important data be restored from protected backups?	Restoration test results
Are critical infrastructure failure points understood?	Resilience assessments
Are recovery activation responsibilities defined?	Escalation and incident procedures
Can complete business-supporting applications be restored?	End-to-end recovery exercise results
Are critical supplier dependencies assessed?	Supplier continuity records
Are recovery findings assigned and tracked?	Corrective action records
Are continuity plans updated after significant changes?	Change assessments and plan reviews
Does management receive reliable ICT readiness information?	Risk reports and review records

 

For each question, assess whether the relevant control is documented, implemented, tested where appropriate, and supported by current evidence.

 

A completed checklist should not be treated as proof that every ICT service can recover successfully.

 

How CyberArrow GRC supports ISO 27031 requirements

 

Managing ICT readiness involves more than implementing technical recovery safeguards.

 

Organizations also need consistent governance processes to document risks, manage policies, monitor controls, maintain evidence, and track corrective actions.

 

When these activities are handled through disconnected spreadsheets, emails, and separate departmental systems, maintaining visibility can become difficult.

 

At CyberArrow, we help organizations simplify governance, risk management, and compliance through our integrated CyberArrow GRC platform.

 

Our platform supports the risk management and compliance workflows organizations need to strengthen oversight of ICT continuity activities.

 

Centralize ICT continuity risk management

 

CyberArrow GRC helps organizations conduct risk assessments and maintain centralized risk information.

 

Teams can document ICT continuity risks, assign owners, track treatment decisions, and monitor outstanding findings.

 

This supports more consistent risk management across cybersecurity, IT operations, compliance, and business teams.

 

Manage policies and control documentation

 

CyberArrow GRC helps organizations manage policies and controls through centralized workflows.

 

Teams can organize relevant documentation, assign responsibilities, and maintain visibility into control management activities.

 

This supports governance over the safeguards selected for ICT continuity programs.

 

Track corrective actions and recovery findings

 

Recovery exercises and continuity assessments can identify weaknesses that require attention.

 

CyberArrow GRC helps organizations assign remediation responsibilities and track corrective action progress.

 

This reduces reliance on disconnected follow-up processes and helps maintain accountability for unresolved risks.

 

Streamline evidence collection

 

Organizations may need to maintain evidence from risk assessments, control reviews, recovery exercises, and corrective action activities.

 

CyberArrow GRC supports evidence collection and compliance workflow automation, helping teams organize relevant records and reduce repetitive administrative work.

 

These capabilities support management reviews and audit readiness.

 

Improve risk visibility and management reporting

 

CyberArrow GRC helps organizations maintain centralized reporting on risks, controls, and remediation activities.

 

This supports informed decisions about ICT continuity priorities and helps leadership understand where important governance and risk management gaps remain.

 

CyberArrow GRC supports the management and oversight of ICT continuity risks. Actual backup restoration, infrastructure failover, disaster recovery execution, and technical recovery testing must still be performed through the organization’s appropriate technology systems and operational procedures.

 

Conclusion: Strengthen ICT continuity governance with CyberArrow GRC

 

Effective ICT continuity requires organizations to understand their critical technology services, protect recovery resources, manage dependencies, and demonstrate that recovery capabilities work when needed.

 

ISO 27031 requirements provide a valuable foundation for evaluating ICT readiness, establishing appropriate continuity controls, and improving the ability to support business operations during disruptions.

 

However, the effectiveness of an ICT readiness program depends on more than technical recovery arrangements.

 

Organizations also need clear governance, consistent risk assessments, reliable control documentation, accountable remediation processes, and meaningful management oversight.

 

At CyberArrow, we help organizations strengthen these capabilities through our integrated CyberArrow GRC platform.

 

Our platform helps teams centralize risk assessments, manage policies and controls, automate compliance workflows, organize evidence, track remediation activities, and improve visibility into governance and risk management programs.

 

By connecting these activities through structured workflows, we help organizations reduce manual administrative work and maintain stronger accountability across their teams.

 

CyberArrow is trusted by the world’s biggest brands across the US, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. We help organizations simplify compliance, strengthen risk management, and improve governance across complex business environments.

 

Whether your organization is reviewing its ICT continuity controls, improving recovery governance, or managing multiple information security and business continuity standards, we can help you maintain better visibility into risks and compliance activities.

 

 

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