Disaster strikes! And businesses that are prepared spring into Recovery Mode, missing as few business beats as possible. How prepared is your business for disaster? (More importantly, how prepared are you for recovery?) And have you ever had to test your planning for real? bMighty wants to know.Disaster planning is the great unsung security vulnerability at many small and midsized businesses, perhaps because, unlike constant matters such as malware, spam and all the other daily digital dilemmas we face, disasters are by their very nature unpredictable.

We know there are going to be new malware sites, that virus definitions have to be updated; we're told when patches are going to be released; we see headlines warning of explosively growing botnets.

Only rarely does a business see a disaster -- an event that interrupts your business's ability to, well, do business -- coming. And after the disaster strikes it's -- d'oh! -- too late to plan for it and its consequences.

Until disaster strikes, though, it's not too late to begin developing and implementing a comprehensive Disaster Recovery (DR) plan that includes:

Comprehensive backup and restoration practices, procedures and policies

Designation of a specific DR team (with designated backup members in case the primary team-members are themselves incapacitated or rendered incommunicado by the disaster)

Alternate sources for hardware, software communications and other infrastructure (beyond recovering your business data) needed to get your business up and running, even in minimal fashion

And more.

Much more.

Thinking about disasters -- much less formally planning for them -- is all too easily avoided, however unavoidable the disaster, if it strikes, proves to be.

All of which is by way of asking if any of you have disaster -- and, if you were prepared, disaster recovery stories -- you'd care to share in advance of bMighty's April 29th Security On A Budget Special Event. (Watch bMighty for details as the date approaches.)

Over the next couple of weeks I'll be taking an occasional look at disasters, disaster recovery, and the all too often all too large gap between the two. I'll also be introducing you to the panel of DR experts who'll be joining me for the DR segment of the April 29th Event.

So let me hear from you -- and bear in mind, as I'll be reminding you, that a disaster doesn't have to be a Katrina-sized headline-grabber.

That backhoe with its blade unwittingly but unerringly at your T1 line has, after all, business disaster written all over it, however invisible the ink.

I look forward to hearing your horror stories -- ad even more to hearing your accounts of successful recovery from business-threatening disasters.