Tag Archives: data security

Data Backup Issues: Are Your Backups Thorough and Secure?

Data Backup, ,
20160428

Securing your data backups is just as important as backing up your data in the first place.

Companies are increasingly recognizing the importance of regular data backups. Backups can spare you from costly, permanent data loss and damaging amounts of downtime in the event of an IT disaster.

Choosing the appropriate data backup solutions for your company can prove challenging. While working within your budget, you need to account for the volume and types of data, and figure out ways to protect the data from theft, corruption and loss. Your methods for backing up data should rest on clear, thoughtful IT policies.

A recent survey reported in an article from Business Cloud News highlights some of the problems with sub-standard data backups. The survey respondents were businesses that had lost important data. Although 86% of them were using some form of data backup at the time of their loss, their backup methods usually had flaws. They may have forgotten to include one of their devices in the backup process. Their backup method may have failed to work reliably. Sporadic backups may have resulted in outdated copies of the data. There are a number of possibilities for why data backups can fail.

Furthermore, even if the data get backed up reliably, it’s possible that the backup storage solution is insecure. And when you transfer data to a storage location, which may be in the cloud, you can lose or expose data in transmission. A recent CIO article points out how companies frequently use insecure methods for transmitting data in the cloud and may fail to enforce any file-sharing policies they’ve laid out for employees.

How can you strengthen your backup solutions?

So that you don’t wind up with the steep cost and profound frustration of losing data in spite of performing backups, the following are several tips for strengthening your backup solutions:

Automation. As long as there’s still human oversight and checks in place, you can rely more on automated processes to back up your data. Automated processes can get configured to operate on a regular schedule, reducing the chances that an employee may forget to perform a backup. Automation can also prevent various human errors, such as accidental file deletion during transfers.

Organization. Different kinds of data require different backup schedules and methods. For example, sensitive and critical information requires secure and frequent backups. Some types of data need to get stored in a way that allows for quick retrieval, while others can get archived more remotely. Furthermore, well-organized data backups mean that you always know the location of every file or application. Good organization is an important quality for rapid data restoration after an IT disaster.

Redundancies. Let’s say you’ve saved all your data backups in one location. What happens if there’s a massive power outage, equipment failure, fire or flood? Your data may get wiped out. You should have copies of valuable data in multiple locations. For example, high-quality cloud-based providers may store your data in more than one secure location, so that even if there’s an equipment failure or outage in one place, your information remains intact.

Encryption. Especially when it comes to sensitive or confidential information, use encrypted channels to transmit it and select storage locations with high levels of security. If you’re selecting a cloud-based program for data backups, look into the provider’s security policies and track record.

Policy enforcement. Without clear, enforceable policies or any cyber training, your employees may treat your data carelessly. Carelessness includes saving copies of sensitive data to insecure locations, emailing confidential files, and failing to check if data backups proceeded successfully.

Please contact us to further discuss the right data backup solutions for your business. We are dedicated to protecting your data and saving you time and money by coming up with the best backup methods that fit your budget.

Ensure You are Not Caught Unawares By IT Problems

Manage Service, ,
Monthly IT Management Reporting is an important part of keeping your business, customers and data safe.

Monthly IT Management Reporting is an important part of keeping your business, customers and data safe.

There are two ways to deal with unplanned IT failure: to insure and to ensure against it. These two words, to insure and to ensure are often confused in people’s minds, but understanding the difference between the two is essential to creating the best IT security and recovery system.

Definitions

To insure something is to put in place a safety net in the case something goes wrong. That is why you purchase car insurance against the event that you have a car wreck. Most people do not experience a car wreck and so their insurance policy is worthless to them, until they do.

To ensure against an adverse event is to set up systems to make as certain as possible that you will not have a negative event in the first place. Cars are ensured against wrecks by required licensing, insurance companies ensure their product by offering discounts to safe drivers, drivers over a certain age, etc. Stoplights, stop-signs and turnabouts are all systems local governments put in place to ensure against wrecks at intersections.

Application to IT

While many people understand insurance from a legal/industrial position, they do not understand the idea of insurance that motivates industry practices like RAID redundancy and nightly server back-ups. These are all practices that put in place a recovery plan in the event that servers crash or other unplanned events cause a loss in your data.

On the other hand, activities like IT Monthly Management Reporting, anti-malware software, and virus monitoring ensure that your software and hardware will run as optimized as possible. This in turn prevents many of the problems that reduce the life of your servers.

Ensurance acts to prevent a problem, insurance creates a back-up in the event that the problem occurs. Most people understand the importance of insurance (backups) for their business IT systems, but many do not understand the importance of ensurance.

Ensure Your Data Systems

There are several steps you need to take to ensure that your systems operate at their best and prevent data loss and server failure as much as possible. Regular monitoring for viruses and security is essential for problem prevention. Monthly comprehensive IT management reports give your IT team the tools necessary to locate problem areas before they get too serious and to accurately address problems.

To properly ensure you are not caught unawares by data problems, these monitoring and reporting activities must be integrated into your regular IT routine. Your IT team must understand the strengths of your servers and your network and address any issues as they arise.

Benefits of Active IT Maintenance

Purposeful IT maintenance and problem prevention provides additional benefits beyond preventing data loss. Increased data security, budget planning, and systems management are all results of building a system of monthly proactive IT management.

Data security is essential for businesses of all size, as seen by the high-profile hacks in the last few years in the news. Although it is impossible to prevent all security leaks, active maintenance will give you the best response possible to outside threats while well-implemented security protocols will provide your best prevention of internal security threats.

Finding the right IT system for your budget is always difficult, but doing so without the right information at hand is nearly impossible. Unless you know how your current system is performing with regular reporting, you cannot know whether the really nice servers your team requested are necessary or merely nice. With monthly reports of all your IT management, you will have accurate and timely information on which to base your budget decisions.

The power of proactive management of your IT ensures against many of the threats businesses face in the technology market today. For more information about management reporting and active monitoring, please contact us today.