Don’t let your strongest asset become a weakest link

A challenge for any organization is dealing with single points of failure (SPOF). By its classic definition, a single point of failure refers to a part of the system with no back up. Or in other words, an operational vulnerability that will cause the entire system to stop working in the event of a failure.

This may look like a single server with no backup server. If it goes down, all access to that application goes down with it.

But there is also a people side to the equation when it comes to single points of failure. A SPOF from a staff perspective might come in the form of the size of the organization (i.e. small ones where one individual wears many hats with no backup), specialty tasks performed by one individual, or simply an organization’s inability or failure to cross train.

Let’s break this down a bit further. If you think hard enough about your own organization, you may find there are more SPOFs than you would care to admit. The key, however, is criticality, the driving force behind determining if the SPOF requires additional consideration or not. Whether a single point of failure should be considered a vulnerability does not depend solely on whether one individual in your organization performs a task that no one else can do. How it would impact the business should it fail is more important.

 

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