The app is down on payday
It is payday. You open your bank app. It does not load. You wait ten minutes. You try again. Still nothing.
How do you feel about that bank now? A system that keeps working, or comes back quickly, is resilient. In this lesson you see why that matters to the company and to its customers.
Key words
| Word | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Resilience | The power to keep working, or to recover fast, when something goes wrong. | A bank app that comes back in a minute |
| Downtime | The time a system is not working. | 3 hours on payday |
| Vulnerability | A weak point that an attacker could use. | An old, unpatched program |
| Reputation | What people think about a company. Good or bad. | A bank people trust |
| Brand | The name, logo and image of a company. | The bank's name and colours |
| Customer confidence | How much customers trust a company to do its job and keep their data safe. | People keep their savings there |
| Encryption | Scrambling data so that only the right people can read it. | HTTPS |
| HTTPS | The web with encryption. The browser shows a padlock. | A shop checkout page |
| VPN | Virtual private network. A private, encrypted path across a public network. | Working from home |
| Network | Computers joined together to share data. | The internet |
| Monitoring | Watching a system all the time so that problems are seen early. | An alert when a server stops |
| Data leak | Private data gets out to people who must not see it. | Customer names and cards shown on the internet |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
Benefits and their impact
| Benefit | Impact on the organisation | Impact on the client |
|---|---|---|
| Increased security | Fewer attacks work. Lower risk of fines and repair costs. | Their data is safer. |
| Increased reputation | The brand is protected. Customers stay and new ones come. | They trust the service. |
| Reduced downtime | Fewer lost sales and fewer angry customers. Staff can keep working. | The service is there when they need it. |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
Quick check
Have a go
Quick check
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.
Security: storage and transfer
A resilient environment protects data in two places. Data in storage sits on disks and backups. We protect it with encryption, backups and rules about who may open it.
Data in transfer moves across a network. We protect it with encryption, such as HTTPS or a VPN.
A resilient environment also has fewer vulnerabilities: weak points are found and closed early.
Reputation and trust
A company's brand is its name and image. If a failure is public, it hurts the brand. People remember the bank that lost their money, or the shop that showed their data to strangers.
A resilient system protects the brand. Customers keep their confidence, so they stay and tell others.
Which benefit is it?
Have a go
Which benefit is it?
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.