Why is Data Governance essential for Business Continuity?

Data Governance

The importance of Data Governance: the day you lose the data you realize how much it is worth.

At 8:17 a.m. on any Monday, production stops. No more labels come out, the warehouse doesn’t unload, the ERP doesn’t talk to the MES. “Is the server down?” No: it’s worse. We do not know if the data are intact. At that point you don’t produce, you don’t bill, you don’t ship. You realize that the data is not a file: it’s critical infrastructure. And when you lose it, you read the cost in downtime minutes and in trust that evaporates.

Ransomware strikes where it hurts most: availability and integrity. Confidentiality is the headline, but in factories the blade cuts elsewhere: if I can’t trust batches, process parameters, master records, I can’t work safely. Stopping becomes the only rational choice. This is where business continuity comes in: not a share folder.

The questions become:

  • How long can we stand still?
  • How much data can we lose without doing irreversible damage?

If the answer is not measured, it is an opinion, and with opinions you don’t start over.

How to build a true business continuity strategy

The operational truth is simple and uncomfortable: backup is useless unless it restores. And it doesn’t restore unless it is segregated, immutable when needed, and tested cold and hot. The rule of thumb still works: multiple copies, different platforms, one offline/air-gapped, 0 error verification in testing. But technique is not enough: crisis theater is needed. Periodic testing and clear roles. Who decides the transition to DR? Who talks to suppliers and customers? Who stops production and by what criteria? If the team finds out on the day of the incident, you’ve already lost half the game.

Without an incident management and data governance plan, any recovery is a leap in the dark. For industrial systems, it means knowing what recipe was in use at 8:16 a.m., what PLC/SCADA version is “golden,” where the signed configurations are, and who can put them back in the field. For IT it means being able to reassemble identities, directories, keys and secrets without dragging in infection. It is why segmentation, minimal privilege and break-glass offline accounts are not frills but survival mechanics.

Then there is a responsibility that cannot be bought with a device: the ethical responsibility to customers and suppliers. When you lose data, you don’t just lose time; you jeopardize others’ decisions based on that data. A wrong shipment, a nonconforming batch, a distorted processing cycle: the damage multiplies along the supply chain. Continuity is not corporate selfishness; it is diligence. Communicating early and with transparency, explaining what is intact and what is not, what services return and when, is part of the cure. Hiding it does not reduce the impact: it delays and amplifies it.

“We pay and it all starts again.” It is the most dangerous of illusions because it does not buy integrity, does not cancel double or triple extortion, does not guarantee that the attacker is not still in. And in many cases it opens a legal front that makes the picture worse. The only insurance is to prepare beforehand: mapped critical assets, recovery priorities decided by the business, realistic internal SLAs.

Everything else is luck, and luck is not a strategy.

From backup to resilience: the lesson for security leaders

From CISO the lesson is one: the value of data is measured in the time to return to normal, not in the terabyte to list. A plan that stands has few but untractable ingredients:

  • Data governance: owners, boundaries, retention
  • Reliable telemetry: useful logs, immutable where needed, access tracked
  • Backup & DR: real segregation, periodic testing, total and partial scenarios
  • Identity and keys: ready to be reborn without “bringing in” the attack
  • Exercises: technical and managerial, with outward communication

The day you lose the data you realize what it is worth, but it is late to negotiate. The smart choice is to decide today what it’s worth to restart in 4 hours instead of 4 days, and pay the cost earlier in preparation, discipline, and rehearsal. Because in the end the difference between incident and catastrophe is not the attacker: it is our ability to restore with certainty what matters, at the speed the business is committed to. Everything else is noise.

Article written by Sandro Sana, Cybersecurity Division Manager at Eurosystem SpA.

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