ARE YOU PROPERLY BACKING UP YOUR BUSINESS DATA?

It may be a new year, but there is still the same risk of cybercrime. Data backup is perhaps the single most important step to take if you want to truly protect your business’s continuity. If you have currently only backed up your data onto a single desktop/laptop computer or some sort of mobile device, you’re doing it wrong.

In fact, according to FBI statistics, 97% of stolen laptops/desktops are never recovered. In the case that those items are lost or stolen, all your business data will be gone. You may be thinking that your business data would be safe on paper copies as well.

However, this still isn’t adequate data protection. In the case of your business premises flooding or burning down, your data could be irretrievably lost. It is obvious to say that both companies and people are very dependent on their data. While it is impossible for a person to survive without water, air, and food, businesses are unable to survive without their data. In fact, 40% of companies do not have the proper disaster recovery or proper backup in place to survive a disaster.

What are the risks of not backing up your data

Losing your data as a business can lead to many substantial problems. When speaking from an operations standpoint, it can lead to a huge loss in productivity. When speaking from a historical standpoint, it means that all the data your company has collected, perfected, and analyzed for years, sometimes even decades, can be permanently lost.

When you don’t backup your information regularly, you could risk losing this data:

• Accounting information
• Customer data
• Historical records
• Employee records
• Contracts and partner information
• Legal documents

Data loss can affect company operations in many ways such as:

• Lost partnerships
• Lost productivity
• Lost effectiveness
• Lost respect
• Lost reputation
• Lost support
• Lost customer service
• Lost revenue

In addition to losing all your crucial business data, you may become liable to damages legally as much of the data handled by companies contains sensitive information. For example, every single company must keep records on employees and has many databases full of customer information. If this personal information becomes compromised, companies can face significant consequences:

• A tarnished reputation
• Fines
• Penalties
• Class action lawsuit

Why backing up files isn’t enough

Backing up your data is an absolute must. To achieve adequate data protection, you need to ensure that you have an established data backup system that follows the steps below:

• Backup business data constantly
• Create backups on reliable media or in the cloud
• If using media for backups, keep the device in an off-site, secure location
• Regularly practice restoring back-up
• Consistently check that back-ups are run successfully

One of the most basic yet crucial rules for business data protection is that if losing the data would interfere with usual business, you need to back it up. While desktop software programs can simply be reinstalled, recovering vital details of transactions or business correspondence is impossible if the files have been damaged beyond repair or lost.

Why are backups necessary

The main purpose of a data backup is to create a copy of the data that can be recovered should a primary data failure occur. These data failures are often the results of software or hardware failure, a human-caused event such as a malicious attack, data corruption, or accidental deletion.

Best data backup practices

A full proof backup architecture comprises of a combination of onsite and offsite backup.

Onsite Backup

An onsite backup is a system backup of data that is stored locally on a separate appliance. This type of backup is typically done on the business premises. Local backups are useful for protecting data from theft or other types of disaster such as appliance breakdown. They provide protection against equipment risk such as server breakdown, as well as boost recovery post a hacking event when the servers are compromised. Hence, onsite backup is critical for disaster recovery, especially if the business relies heavily on computers.

An onsite backup typically includes all important data that has been saved to local media such as tapes, or hard disks.

Offsite Backup

Offsite backups are a type of data protection that provides a copy of a business’ production system data, which is stored in a different location from where the original data is stored.

Offsite backup solutions have been used for decades as a way to protect data from potential disasters like fires, natural disasters, and other unforeseen events. The core goal of an offsite backup is to have a secondary location where the data is located, so if there is a fire at the original location then the secondary backup will be safe.

Having an offsite and onsite backup is key to ensuring business continuity and planning for disaster recovery especially when the location is prone to natural disasters such as hurricanes and storms.

The bottom line

Nothing is worth the risk of losing your essential business data. The best defense against such a disaster is ensuring that you have the proper data protection. When you create a reliable backup system that also includes both archiving and backing up your business data properly and regularly, you will ensure that your business will be able to weather whatever storm it faces and easily carry on.

Remember this, you can never have too many data backups. In today’s day and age, businesses need a business continuity and disaster and recovery plan (BCDR). If you don’t know where to start, it can be a daunting task.

If you need guidance get in touch with us here, we can help!