What It Is

ISO 22301:2019 is an international certification standard for Business Continuity Management Systems (BCMS). It provides requirements to plan, establish, implement, operate, monitor, review, maintain, and continually improve resilience against disruptions. The standard follows a risk-based PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) approach across 10 clauses.

Key Components

• Clauses 4-10 form the core: context, leadership, planning (including BIA and risk assessment), support, operation (recovery strategies), evaluation, and improvement.
• No prescriptive controls; flexible, tailored to organizational context.
• Built on Annex SL high-level structure.
• Certification valid for 3 years with annual surveillance audits.

Why Organizations Use It

Enhances resilience, reduces downtime and financial losses, ensures regulatory compliance (e.g., NIS Directive), builds stakeholder trust, and provides competitive edges like procurement advantages. Addresses threats like cyberattacks, pandemics, and supply chain failures.

Implementation Overview

Start with gap analysis, BIA, policy development, training, testing, and audits. Applicable to all sizes/sectors; certification via two-stage process (6-8 weeks). Tools automate for efficiency.

What It Is

23 NYCRR Part 500 is the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) Cybersecurity Regulation, a state-level mandate effective March 2017 with 2023 amendments. It establishes risk-based cybersecurity requirements for financial services entities to protect nonpublic information (NPI) and information systems, emphasizing governance, controls, and reporting.

Key Components

• 14 core requirements including cybersecurity program (§500.2), CISO oversight (§500.4), risk assessments (§500.9), MFA (§500.12), encryption (§500.15), TPSP management (§500.11), and 72-hour incident notification (§500.17).
• Built on risk assessment-centric architecture; annual CISO/CEO certification with 5-year record retention.
• Enhanced for Class A Companies (e.g., >$20M NY revenue, >2,000 employees) with audits and EDR.

Why Organizations Use It

• Mandatory for NY-licensed financial entities (banks, insurers, etc.) to avoid multimillion-dollar fines (e.g., Robinhood $30M).
• Enhances resilience, reduces incident risk, builds stakeholder trust, and aligns with NIST CSF.

Implementation Overview

• Phased roadmap: gap analysis, asset inventory, MFA rollout, TPSP contracts; up to 24 months.
• Applies to NY-regulated firms globally; no certification but annual filing and DFS examinations.