ISO 22301 is an international standard for business continuity management systems. It helps organizations define how they will keep critical services running, recover them after disruption, and maintain continuity controls such as backup, failover, communication, and testing. The standard is built around understanding business impact, setting recovery objectives, and making sure continuity plans are documented, approved, and reviewed.
In cyber security, ISO 22301 matters because attacks like ransomware, destructive malware, and data corruption are not only technical incidents; they are continuity events. A strong ISO 22301 program pushes teams to identify essential systems, assign recovery time and recovery point targets, and test whether those targets are realistic. Defenders use it to reduce downtime and avoid “paper resilience,” where a plan looks complete but fails under pressure. Attackers benefit when continuity is weak, because slow recovery and poor prioritization increase business damage.