Have you ever experienced the horror of data loss? Or felt a debilitating moment of panic where you thought you did?
From Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and IT directors to DevOps engineers and cloud technicians, we can all be in the firing line. The reality is, human error is now the biggest threat to data loss – with 82% of breaches in 2022 happening at the hand of employees, according to Verizon's 2022 Data Breaches Investigations Report.
Here, Vapour CEO Tim Mercer explores the importance of a robust backup strategy, and shares how organisations can clean up their cyber hygiene, in 2023 and beyond…
At the heart of every successful data backup and disaster recovery plan is the 3-2-1 rule. This states that there should always be three copies of data, on two different storage types, with one being located off-site. For example, you may keep a backup of an external hard drive on a USB and in the cloud, to ensure there is no single point of failure.
Helping to protect the integrity and recoverability of business-critical data should the worst situation happen, it remains a tried-and-true method for organisations operating in a variety of sectors.
However, in order for this strategy to be successful, ensuring data backups are error-free is essential. That’s why monitoring and testing should be undertaken on a regular basis – whether that’s entering queries and comparing the retrieved results or testing the ability to recover an entire system.
Knowing who is accessing your data both internally and externally, as well as where they are able to gain entry from, is crucial in ensuring the highest level of protection. If unauthorised personnel get a hold of your commercial or sensitive data, they can cause significant damage both financially and reputationally.
The continued push to adopt a work-from-anywhere business model brings a new dynamic to permissions too – as security practices are often relaxed, or simply ignored. Ideally, employees won’t use their personal devices in any business capacity, and IT/security policies should dictate this. If a corporate IT team manages equipment, it makes it easier to conduct regular updates and manage software, to prevent any added security risks.
The longer it takes for data to be recovered in the event of loss, the more time will pass before an organisation can return to ‘business as usual’. And increased downtime inevitably leads to rising costs. According to Veeam’s 2022 Data Protection Report, the average cost of downtime is around £1,242 per minute. Eyewatering!
Of course, threats to business continuity is something nobody wants to contemplate. That’s why being able to adapt rapidly – without making knee-jerk decisions based on of the moment pressures – is crucial. And a robust business continuity plan is crucial in this respect. The goal of such a strategy is to keep mission-critical operations running as smoothly as possible during disruption, whilst the disaster recovery works to resolve the underlying issue.
Whether targeted directly by ransomware or affected as collateral damage, backups themselves are increasingly at the risk of sophisticated cyber-attacks. Therefore, are you comfortable that your data is safe from these enhanced security risks? And how does the software within your backup solution measure up?
Backups that are not encrypted are under serious danger of being compromised by hackers – offering ‘free entry’ to not only read supposedly protected data, but inject malicious malware and ransomware into it too. Without the option to recover a system from backups, businesses may have little option but to pay up.
As well as regularly patching and updating backup systems, it’s important to ensure teams are clued up when it comes to spotting cyber security threats. After all, employees are often your first line of defence.
As the volume of business data grows, so too does the need for storage that can scale in capacity. This is particularly true for firms that handle a lot of customer enquiries, such as financial institutions and customer service centres. Therefore, understanding the capabilities of your service provider is equally as crucial.
As the future of backups, cloud is the only place where you can almost instantly increase and decrease resources, paying solely for what your business uses at that moment. And with no servers or appliances to manage, as well as built-in security, cloud backups tend to be more hassle-free too.
To ensure your data backup activities are consistent with good practice, as well as relevant industry standards and regulations, periodic audits are also crucial – not least when tendering for new business. So, it’s important to understand whether your tech partner can offer the right level of support here.
Searching for the perfect backup? Explore our Veeam-powered solutions, today. Or, if you want to hear more on this topic from Mark, you can watch this recent video.
