Glossary

We have prepared a glossary of common terms for your convenience. These terms have been extracted from various sources. Just click on the alphabet of the term you are looking for to find the definition.

We shall be updating these terms from time to time so please visit us to get the latest updates.

You will find at the end of the definition there will be an abbreviation within bracket. This indicates the source of that definition. At times a single term may have different definition from different sources. We have included it for your benefits.

Below is the meaning for each abbreviation:

  • BCI  -  Business Continuity Institute, UK
  • DRII - Disaster Recovery Institute International, US
  • BCMI - Business Continuity Management Institute, Singapore
  • MS1970 - Business Continuity Management Framework, Department of Standards Malaysia
  • ASIS International – Organization for security professionals.
Internal Control


All the means, tangible and intangible that can be employed or used to ensure that established objectives are met.

See: Control Culture (BCI)
 
Invocation

The act by which a Business Continuity Management or Crisis Management process is formally started. The term is often used to refer to the act of using a service such as work area recovery as offered by commercial or third party provider.
See: Activation. (BCI)
 
Level of Business Continuity

The minimum level of business continuity of services and /or products that is acceptable to the organisation or industry to achieve its business objectives that may influenced or dictated by regulation or legislation. (BCI)
Likelihood

See: Probability (BCI)
Loss

A negative consequence which may be financial e.g. loss of cash, or non-financial e.g. loss of information or loss of goodwill. (BCI)
Manual Procedures

An alternative method of working following a loss of IT systems. As working practices rely more and more on computerized activities, the ability of an organisation to fallback to manual alternatives lessens. However, temporary measures and methods of working can help mitigate the impact of a Business Continuity E/I/C and give staff a feeling of doing something. (BCI)
Mission Critical Activities


The critical operational and/or business support activities (either provided internally or outsourced) without which the organisation would quickly be unable to achieve its business objective(s) i.e. services and /or products.

See: Critical Service (BCI)
 
Mission Critical Application

An application that is essential to the organisation’s ability to perform necessary business functions. Loss of the mission- critical application would have negative impact on the business as well as legal or regulatory impacts. (DRII)
Mock Disaster


One method of exercising teams in which participants are challenged to determine the actions they would take in the event of a specific disaster scenario. Mock disasters usually involve all, or most of the applicable teams.

Under the guidance of exercise coordinators, the teams walk through the actions they would take per their plans, or simulate performance of these actions. Teams may be at single exercise locations, with communication between teams simulating actual ‘disaster mode’ communications. A mock disaster will typically operate on a compressed timeframe representing many hours, or even days. (DRII)
Natural Threats

Events caused by nature that have the potential to impact an organisation. (DRII)