Cato BCP (Business Continuity Plan) Q&A

Cato Networks’ Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is a comprehensive framework designed to ensure that critical business functions and customer services continue to operate during and after disruptive events, such as natural disasters, pandemics, cyber-attacks, wars, or other emergencies. The BCP outlines the procedures, responsibilities, and resources required to manage such incidents effectively, minimizing downtime and maintaining service levels.

The BCP is essential for safeguarding the operations of Cato Networks and ensuring that our customers experience no or minimal disruption, even in the face of severe incidents. By having a robust BCP in place, we can quickly respond to crises, protect our employees, secure our infrastructure, and most importantly, continue to deliver our services to customers without interruption.

The key objectives of our BCP are to:

• Minimize Disruption: Reduce the impact of any disruption on Cato Networks’ services, ensuring that critical operations continue.
• Ensure Safety: Protect the well-being of our employees and customers.
• Rapid Recovery: Restore normal operations as quickly as possible, minimizing downtime.
• Effective Communication: Maintain clear and timely communication with all stakeholders, including employees, customers, and partners, throughout any incident.

The BCP covers a wide range of potential disaster scenarios, including:

• IT Failures: Such as disruptions to our production environment in cloud and/or physical data centers, which could prevent access to or use of Cato Networks services.
• Office Inaccessibility: Situations where our offices are inaccessible or unusable due to events like natural disasters, fires, social and geopolitical disruptions, or security incidents.
• Workforce Unavailability: Scenarios where a significant portion of our workforce is unable to work due to pandemics, severe weather, geopolitical conflicts, or other large-scale disruptions.

The BCP is structured around a tiered approach to business operations:

• Tier 1: Critical operations that are essential to our products and services and must be maintained without interruption, even during a disaster or disruption. This includes operations that are directly tied to the core services we provide to customers, such as cloud service operations, customer support, and security monitoring. These functions are prioritized to ensure continuous operation.
• Tier 2: Important operations that can be maintained at a reduced capacity for a short period without significant impact on overall service delivery. This comprises important business functions that support the core operations but can tolerate some delay or reduced capacity, such as IT support and development of new features.
• Tier 3: Less-critical operations that can be paused temporarily without immediate adverse effects, allowing resources to be focused on more critical functions. This encompasses functions that, while important, can be temporarily suspended if necessary, such as non-essential administrative tasks and new vendor onboarding.

The BCP ensures continuity through several key strategies:

• Globally Distributed Operations: In the event that certain regional operations are disrupted, we can shift critical tasks to alternative staff who are fully trained and equipped to handle essential services. To cover all scenarios, Cato has operations (Ops), support and engineering staff in Israel, US, Czech Republic and The Philippines.
• Emergency Equipment: We provide essential employees with emergency equipment, such as solar chargers and portable power generators, to maintain operations during power outages.
• Automated Procedures: Our systems are designed to automatically transfer critical permissions and access rights to designated personnel in safe locations, ensuring that operations continue seamlessly.

In the event of IT resource failures, such as a disruption in our data centers, the BCP outlines specific recovery procedures:

• Backup Systems: We maintain backup systems that can be activated to restore services quickly.
• Alternative Data Centers: We have access to multiple data centers across different geographic locations, allowing us to switch operations to unaffected sites.
• Rapid Response Teams: Our IT teams are trained to respond immediately to IT failures, working around the clock to restore normal operations.

If our offices become inaccessible due to events like natural disasters or security threats, the BCP includes measures to ensure that business operations continue:

• Secure Remote Work: Employees are equipped to work remotely, with secure, zero-trust network access (ZTNA) to all necessary systems and data.
• Alternative Locations: We have identified alternative locations where critical teams can relocate if needed, ensuring that key operations are not disrupted.
• Virtual Collaboration Tools: Our teams are equipped with tools to collaborate and communicate effectively, even when working from different locations.

In scenarios where a significant portion of the workforce is unavailable or with limited availability, such as during a pandemic, the BCP includes contingency plans to maintain operations:

• Role Reassignment: Employees with overlapping skills may be reassigned to cover critical functions temporarily.
• Remote Work Enablement: The BCP ensures that all employees have the resources and access needed to work from home if they are unable to report to the office.
• Cross-Training: Key personnel are cross-trained to handle multiple roles, ensuring that critical operations can continue even if some team members are unavailable.

To cover all scenarios, Cato has operations (Ops), support and engineering staff in Israel, US, Czech Republic and The Philippines.

A Disaster Management Team (DMT) is responsible for activating the BCP. This team, composed of the following senior executives and key operational leaders: CIO, VP Operations, CFO, CISO & DPO, is tasked with assessing the situation, determining the level of response required, and coordinating all recovery efforts. The DMT has the authority to make critical decisions, such as declaring an emergency, triggering recovery protocols, and communicating with stakeholders.

The DMT plays a central role in managing any crisis that may impact Cato Networks. Their responsibilities include:

• Assessing Damage: Evaluating the extent of the disruption and its impact on operations.
• Coordinating Recovery Efforts: Directing the recovery teams and ensuring that all necessary resources are deployed effectively.
• Communicating with Stakeholders: Keeping employees, customers, and partners informed about the situation and the steps being taken to resolve it.
• Restoring Services: Overseeing the restoration of critical services to ensure that Cato Networks continues to operate effectively.

In the event of a disaster, communication with employees is a top priority. The DMT uses multiple channels to keep employees informed, including:

• Phone and Email Alerts and business messaging apps: Immediate notifications are sent to all employees, providing instructions on how to proceed.
• Messaging Systems: Internal messaging platforms are used to provide real-time updates and coordinate actions.
• Annual Training: Employees are trained annually on disaster response protocols, ensuring they know their roles and responsibilities during a crisis.

Customer communication is a critical component of our BCP. In the event of a disruption, we ensure that customers are kept informed through:

• Immediate Notifications: Customers are promptly informed of any service disruptions, data breaches, or significant operational changes that may affect them.
• Dedicated Communication Channels: We use multiple channels, including email, phone, and our online status page at https://status.catonetworks.com, to provide timely updates and support.
• Transparency: We are committed to transparency, providing detailed information about the nature of the disruption, the steps we are taking to resolve it, and the expected timeline for service restoration.

Cato is actively working on continuously expanding service monitoring APIs to enable programmatic access to the service status and alerts

To ensure the effectiveness of our BCP, we conduct annual tests that simulate various disaster scenarios:

• Comprehensive Simulations: We simulate different types of disruptions, from IT failures to natural disasters, to test our response procedures.
• Involvement of All Departments: The tests involve all relevant departments, ensuring that everyone is familiar with their roles and responsibilities.
• Continuous Improvement: After each test, we conduct a “lessons learned” review to identify areas for improvement and update the BCP accordingly.

Test results are reviewed by external auditors as part of Cato’s SOC and ISO certifications.

The BCP is a living document that is regularly reviewed and updated:

• Regular Reviews: We review the BCP at least annually, incorporating feedback from tests, actual incidents, and changes in our business operations.
• Stakeholder Input: We gather input from key stakeholders, including customers, employees, and partners, to ensure that the BCP addresses their needs and concerns.
• Adaptive Changes: The BCP is updated to reflect new technologies, emerging threats, and changes in our business environment, ensuring that it remains effective and relevant.

Employee training is a critical aspect of our BCP:

• Annual Training Sessions: All employees participate in annual training sessions that cover the BCP, disaster response procedures, and their specific roles during an emergency.
• Specialized Training for Key Personnel: Employees with critical roles in the BCP receive additional training to ensure they can execute their responsibilities effectively.
• Ongoing Education: We provide ongoing education and updates throughout the year, keeping employees informed about any changes to the BCP and best practices in disaster response.