Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Auditing Training Course

Course Introduction

The Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Auditing Training Course provides a comprehensive framework for evaluating whether organisations can maintain critical operations, protect essential resources, respond effectively to disruptive events, and recover within defined objectives. Participants will develop practical audit capabilities covering business continuity governance, risk assessment, business impact analysis, recovery planning, disaster recovery controls, testing, crisis management, and resilience assurance.

Organisations face an increasingly broad range of disruptive events, including cyber incidents, technology failures, natural disasters, infrastructure outages, supplier failures, facility disruptions, workforce shortages, and operational emergencies. This course examines how auditors can evaluate preparedness for these scenarios and determine whether continuity and recovery arrangements are appropriately designed, documented, implemented, tested, and maintained. Emphasis is placed on linking continuity requirements to organisational strategy, critical processes, risk appetite, and stakeholder expectations.

Participants will examine business impact analysis methodologies used to identify critical products, services, processes, systems, information, facilities, personnel, suppliers, and dependencies. The programme explores recovery time objectives, recovery point objectives, maximum tolerable periods of disruption, minimum business continuity objectives, recovery priorities, resource requirements, and interdependencies. Auditors will learn how to assess whether these requirements are realistic, formally approved, consistently applied, and supported by appropriate recovery capabilities.

The course provides detailed coverage of disaster recovery arrangements for technology infrastructure, applications, databases, networks, cloud environments, communications, and critical information assets. Participants will evaluate backup and restoration controls, redundancy, high availability, alternate processing, recovery sites, system restoration procedures, data protection, recovery sequencing, and technical dependencies. They will also examine how technology recovery plans should connect with wider business continuity arrangements and crisis management structures.

A practical assurance perspective is maintained throughout the programme. Participants will learn how to audit continuity and recovery exercises, tabletop simulations, technical recovery tests, crisis scenarios, supplier exercises, and integrated resilience assessments. They will examine how test results, identified weaknesses, lessons learned, corrective actions, and repeated testing can provide evidence about actual recovery capability rather than relying solely on documented plans. Data analytics and continuous monitoring approaches are also incorporated to strengthen ongoing assurance.

By the end of the programme, participants will be equipped to plan, execute, document, and report business continuity and disaster recovery audits using a structured, risk-based methodology. They will be able to evaluate governance, impact assessments, recovery strategies, technical controls, crisis arrangements, third-party dependencies, testing programmes, and remediation activities, while developing practical recommendations that strengthen organisational preparedness, resilience, recoverability, and continuous improvement.

Duration

10 days

Who Should Attend

• Internal auditors responsible for assessing business continuity, disaster recovery, and organisational resilience programmes.

• IT auditors evaluating technology recovery, backup, infrastructure resilience, and disaster recovery controls.

• Business continuity professionals seeking advanced assurance and audit techniques for continuity management programmes.

• Disaster recovery managers responsible for designing, maintaining, testing, and improving technology recovery capabilities.

• Risk management professionals assessing disruption scenarios, critical dependencies, recovery requirements, and resilience risks.

• Information security professionals evaluating cyber resilience, recovery readiness, and technology-related continuity controls.

• Crisis management professionals involved in organisational response, escalation, communication, and recovery arrangements.

• Compliance and governance professionals responsible for reviewing continuity and recovery requirements against applicable obligations.

• Technology infrastructure managers overseeing availability, redundancy, backup, recovery sites, and system restoration capabilities.

• Application and database managers responsible for recoverability of critical enterprise applications and information assets.

• Third-party risk professionals assessing supplier continuity, recovery capabilities, and critical service dependencies.

• Audit managers and assurance leaders responsible for continuity, resilience, and disaster recovery assurance engagements.

• Business process owners accountable for maintaining continuity arrangements for critical organisational services.

• Professionals seeking practical expertise in auditing business continuity, disaster recovery, resilience testing, and recovery effectiveness.

Course Objectives

• Develop a comprehensive understanding of business continuity, disaster recovery, organisational resilience, and the auditor’s role in evaluating preparedness and recoverability.

• Apply risk-based audit methodologies to assess continuity and recovery arrangements across business processes, technology, facilities, people, suppliers, and critical resources.

• Evaluate business continuity governance, policies, responsibilities, oversight structures, management reporting, accountability, and programme performance.

• Assess business impact analysis methodologies and determine whether critical processes, services, dependencies, recovery priorities, and resource requirements are appropriately identified.

• Examine recovery objectives including recovery time objectives, recovery point objectives, maximum tolerable disruption, minimum service requirements, and recovery sequencing.

• Evaluate business continuity strategies, alternative operating arrangements, manual workarounds, workforce plans, facilities, communications, and other controls supporting continued operations.

• Audit disaster recovery capabilities covering infrastructure, applications, databases, networks, cloud services, backup environments, recovery sites, and critical information assets.

• Assess backup and restoration controls, redundancy, replication, data protection, recovery integrity, restoration procedures, and evidence demonstrating actual recoverability.

• Evaluate continuity and recovery testing programmes, including tabletop exercises, technical tests, simulations, crisis exercises, supplier tests, and integrated resilience scenarios.

• Analyse third-party and technology dependencies to determine whether critical suppliers, outsourced services, cloud providers, and interconnected systems are adequately incorporated into recovery planning.

• Develop evidence-based audit findings, recommendations, reports, remediation plans, and follow-up procedures that clearly communicate continuity and recovery weaknesses.

• Strengthen continuous resilience assurance by integrating performance metrics, test results, incident lessons, analytics, maturity assessments, and ongoing monitoring into audit programmes.

Comprehensive Course Outline

Module 1: Foundations of Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Auditing

• Principles, terminology, objectives, lifecycle stages, and professional responsibilities associated with business continuity and disaster recovery auditing.

• Relationship between business continuity management, disaster recovery, crisis management, risk management, operational resilience, and enterprise governance.

• Common disruption scenarios including natural disasters, cyber incidents, technology failures, facility outages, supplier disruptions, and workforce interruptions.

• Audit perspectives on preparedness, recoverability, resilience maturity, control effectiveness, evidence requirements, and management assurance.

Module 2: Business Continuity Governance, Policies and Management Frameworks

• Business continuity governance structures, programme ownership, executive accountability, committee oversight, roles, responsibilities, and reporting arrangements.

• Continuity policies, standards, procedures, methodologies, programme requirements, documentation controls, and management approval processes.

• Integration of continuity management with enterprise risk management, internal audit, information security, crisis management, and strategic planning.

• Evaluating programme governance, resource allocation, performance monitoring, management oversight, compliance expectations, and continual improvement.

Module 3: Business Continuity Risk Assessment and Audit Planning

• Identifying disruption risks affecting critical business processes, services, personnel, facilities, technology, information, suppliers, and infrastructure.

• Developing continuity audit universes, risk assessments, engagement objectives, scopes, control matrices, evidence requirements, and audit programmes.

• Assessing inherent risk, control risk, residual risk, disruption impact, recovery complexity, criticality, and organisational risk tolerance.

• Planning audit resources, stakeholder engagement, testing procedures, timelines, sampling approaches, specialist support, and reporting arrangements.

Module 4: Business Impact Analysis and Critical Process Assessment

• Business impact analysis methodologies for identifying critical products, services, processes, activities, systems, information, and supporting resources.

• Evaluating maximum tolerable period of disruption, recovery time objectives, recovery point objectives, minimum service levels, and recovery priorities.

• Assessing process dependencies involving people, technology, facilities, suppliers, information, communications, utilities, and other critical resources.

• Auditing BIA documentation, assumptions, approval processes, review frequency, data quality, scenario coverage, and alignment with organisational objectives.

Module 5: Business Continuity Strategies and Alternative Operations

• Evaluating continuity strategies for critical business processes, including alternate facilities, remote operations, manual procedures, workarounds, and resource substitution.

• Assessing workforce continuity, succession arrangements, cross-training, critical skills, staffing dependencies, emergency contacts, and personnel availability.

• Auditing alternative facilities, equipment, communications, supplies, utilities, transportation, and other resources required to maintain essential operations.

• Determining whether continuity strategies are practical, adequately resourced, regularly reviewed, and aligned with identified business impact requirements.

Module 6: Disaster Recovery Governance and Technology Recovery Planning

• Disaster recovery governance, recovery ownership, technology responsibilities, recovery procedures, escalation structures, and management oversight.

• Evaluating recovery strategies for servers, networks, databases, applications, cloud environments, communications, storage, and critical technology infrastructure.

• Assessing recovery sequencing, system dependencies, technical prerequisites, restoration priorities, recovery teams, documentation, and operational handover procedures.

• Auditing disaster recovery plans for completeness, accuracy, currency, accessibility, version control, approval, and alignment with business continuity requirements.

Module 7: Backup, Data Protection and Recovery Controls

• Evaluating backup policies, schedules, retention, storage architecture, encryption, access controls, segregation, monitoring, and backup failure management.

• Auditing replication, redundancy, immutable backups, offline storage, geographic separation, recovery copies, and protection against destructive events.

• Assessing data restoration procedures, integrity validation, recovery point achievement, reconciliation, application dependencies, and restoration evidence.

• Testing whether backup and recovery capabilities can withstand cyber incidents, hardware failures, data corruption, human error, and other disruption scenarios.

Module 8: Crisis Management, Emergency Response and Communications

• Crisis management structures, incident command, emergency decision-making, escalation thresholds, crisis teams, and executive responsibilities.

• Evaluating emergency communication plans covering employees, customers, regulators, suppliers, partners, authorities, and other relevant stakeholders.

• Auditing crisis communication channels, contact lists, notification procedures, message approval, information security, and communication redundancy.

• Assessing crisis exercises, leadership decision-making, situational awareness, coordination, stakeholder management, and lessons learned.

Module 9: Continuity and Disaster Recovery Testing and Exercising

• Principles and methodologies for auditing tabletop exercises, simulations, technical recovery tests, failover exercises, crisis scenarios, and integrated resilience testing.

• Evaluating test objectives, scenarios, assumptions, participant coverage, dependencies, test evidence, performance measures, and success criteria.

• Assessing recovery test results, failed procedures, unexpected dependencies, resource constraints, communication weaknesses, and identified control deficiencies.

• Auditing lessons learned, corrective actions, retesting, management approvals, remediation tracking, and evidence that improvements have been implemented.

Module 10: Technology Resilience, High Availability and Recovery Architecture

• Auditing high availability, clustering, redundancy, failover, load balancing, resilient architecture, and single points of failure affecting critical services.

• Evaluating infrastructure recovery arrangements for networks, servers, storage, databases, applications, telecommunications, and essential technology platforms.

• Assessing cloud resilience, multi-region architecture, provider dependencies, service availability, recovery capabilities, and shared-responsibility considerations.

• Identifying architectural weaknesses that could prevent timely recovery or create systemic dependencies across critical business services.

Module 11: Third-Party, Supplier and Outsourced Service Continuity

• Assessing continuity and recovery requirements for critical suppliers, outsourced service providers, technology partners, logistics providers, and managed services.

• Evaluating contractual recovery requirements, service levels, notification obligations, testing provisions, resilience commitments, and supplier accountability.

• Auditing third-party continuity plans, recovery evidence, exercise participation, assurance reports, alternative arrangements, and dependency mapping.

• Addressing concentration risk, supplier failure, cloud dependency, fourth-party relationships, exit planning, substitution options, and service portability.

Module 12: Cyber Resilience and Disaster Recovery for Cyber Incidents

• Evaluating recovery readiness for ransomware, destructive malware, credential compromise, data corruption, cyber extortion, and other disruptive cyber events.

• Auditing cyber recovery strategies, isolated backups, privileged access controls, recovery credentials, restoration sequencing, and secure recovery environments.

• Assessing coordination between incident response, cybersecurity, disaster recovery, business continuity, crisis management, and executive decision-making.

• Reviewing cyber recovery exercises, lessons learned, recovery gaps, containment dependencies, and improvements required to strengthen resilience against evolving attacks.

Module 13: Continuity Data Analytics, Metrics and Performance Monitoring

• Using data analytics to assess continuity plans, critical process inventories, recovery tests, incidents, backup performance, corrective actions, and resilience indicators.

• Developing meaningful metrics covering recovery performance, test completion, unresolved findings, backup success, restoration performance, and plan maintenance.

• Applying trend analysis, exception analysis, dashboards, data visualisation, and continuous monitoring to identify deteriorating resilience capabilities.

• Evaluating the reliability, relevance, completeness, and timeliness of continuity performance information used by management and governance bodies.

Module 14: Resilience Maturity, Control Effectiveness and Root Cause Analysis

• Assessing the maturity of business continuity, disaster recovery, crisis management, technology resilience, and organisational recovery capabilities.

• Evaluating preventive, preparedness, response, recovery, corrective, and improvement controls according to design and operating effectiveness.

• Performing root cause analysis on failed tests, repeated incidents, delayed recovery, incomplete plans, unavailable resources, and persistent resilience weaknesses.

• Developing prioritised remediation plans, ownership structures, deadlines, residual-risk assessments, and mechanisms for validating sustainable improvements.

Module 15: Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Audit Reporting

• Developing audit findings that clearly connect conditions, criteria, causes, consequences, disruption risks, supporting evidence, and practical recommendations.

• Communicating continuity and recovery weaknesses to executives, board committees, audit committees, risk functions, technology leaders, and business owners.

• Preparing comprehensive audit reports covering governance, BIA, continuity strategies, disaster recovery, testing, suppliers, cyber resilience, and recovery performance.

• Managing management responses, corrective action plans, issue validation, residual risk acceptance, overdue actions, escalation, and follow-up assurance.

Module 16: Advanced Resilience Assurance and Emerging Disruption Risks

• Developing integrated assurance strategies connecting business continuity, disaster recovery, cybersecurity, crisis management, operational resilience, and enterprise risk.

• Evaluating continuous controls monitoring, automated recovery validation, resilience analytics, digital simulations, scenario modelling, and technology-enabled assurance.

• Assessing emerging disruption risks involving artificial intelligence, cloud concentration, critical technology dependencies, supply chain disruption, geopolitical events, and systemic digital outages.

• Designing future-focused audit programmes that strengthen adaptive capacity, recovery speed, organisational learning, resilience investment, and sustainable continuity assurance.

Training Approach

This course will be delivered by our skilled trainers who have vast knowledge and experience as expert professionals in the fields. The course is taught in English and through a mix of theory, practical activities, group discussion and case studies. Course manuals and additional training materials will be provided to the participants upon completion of the training.

Tailor-Made Course

This course can also be tailor-made to meet organization requirement. For further inquiries, please contact us on: Email: training@upskilldevelopment.com Tel: +254 721 331 808

Training Venue 

The training will be held at our Upskill Training Centre. We also offer training for a group (at a discount of 10% to 50%) at requested location all over the world. The Onsite course fee covers the course tuition, training materials, two break refreshments, buffet lunch, airport transfers, Upskill gift package, and guided tour.

Visa application, travel expenses, dinners, accommodation, insurance, and other personal expenses are catered by the participant

Certification

Participants will be issued with Upskill certificate upon completion of this course.

Airport Pickup and Accommodation

Airport pickup and accommodation is arranged upon request. For booking contact our Training Coordinator through Email: training@upskilldevelopment.com, +254 721 331 808

Terms of Payment:

Unless otherwise agreed between the two parties’ payment of the course fee should be done 3 working days before commencement of the training so as to enable us to prepare better.