# Business Impact Analysis (BIA)
One-sentence definition: Process to determine critical business processes, dependencies, and the impact of disruption to set recovery priorities.
## Key Facts
- Identify critical functions, dependencies (people, tech, vendors), and impacts (financial, reputational, legal, safety).
- Determine Maximum Tolerable Downtime (MTD/MAO) for each function.
- Derive recovery objectives (RTO, RPO) and resource requirements.
- Consider upstream/downstream dependencies and single points of failure.
- Use workshops, questionnaires, and data review; validate with leadership.
- Feed outputs into BCP/DR strategy and investments.
- **Label:** **Prioritization** tool for continuity planning.
- **Verify:** check official (ISC)² CBK and current exam outline.
## Exam Relevance
- Choose what information BIA provides vs risk assessment or DR tests.
**Mnemonic:** “What breaks, how bad, how long.”
## Mini Scenario
Q: If MTD is 24h but current RTO is 48h—what does this imply?
A: Gap; need additional controls/strategies to meet objectives.
## Revision Checklist
- Define MTD and list 3 impact types.
- Explain how BIA informs RTO/RPO.
- Name two data-gathering methods.
## Related
[[RTO, RPO, WRT]] · [[Business Continuity Management (BCP)]] · [[Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP)]] · [[Risk Management Lifecycle]] · [[Security Metrics, KPIs, KRIs]] · [[Domain 1 - Index]]