IT Red Flags: Part 2

IT Red Flags: Part 2

The second installment in our blog series about IT Red Flags is all about data backup, and why you need one. If you are not backing up your data carefully, then you’re putting your data and your business at risk. Cybercrime, hardware damage – the list of ways you can lose data is never-ending.

Do you have a data backup?

If you do not, you’re not alone. It’s astounding how many organizations our team meet with that do not have one in place. Data backup should be a basic priority.

4 Reasons You Need A Data Backup

At the rate, technology evolves and how quickly your standard operations and concerned policies are required to keep up with it, it’s no surprise many organizations find it difficult to keep up.

1. Data Retention Contingencies

When policy development falls behind the pace of adopted technologies, it can often lead to gaps, which can affect data retention. The fact is that many applications only have limited backup and retention policies, equipped to handle situational data loss – not comprehensive.

2. Cybercrime

Data loss is often the result of poor digital security; without the right defenses, cybercriminals can easily infect an IT system with ransomware or other types of malware or compromise your internal data. In a ransomware attack, a hacker gains access to an organization’s computer systems. 

Typically, an unsuspecting employee clicks on an emailed attachment that appears to be a bill or other official document. In actuality, the attachment installs malware onto the computer system. Once embedded, the malware allows a hacker to access critical systems, often giving complete remote control of the system and data access.  This attachment could also be ransomware, which is a type of malware, which has the potential of encrypting all files the employee’s computer has access to across the network and then holding the access keys for the encrypted files for ransom.

If you have a proper data backup solution, then it doesn’t matter if your data has been encrypted. You can replace it with your backup, simple as that.

That’s why you should make a considerable investment in a comprehensive data backup recovery solution so that you can restore your data at a moment’s notice if ever necessary.

3. Maintaining Compliance

When it comes to modern compliance requirements, redundant data backups are critical. You need to know what’s required in your industry regarding compliance regulations. Make sure you have backup methods in place to show and remain compliant. The default backup capabilities offered by many applications may not suffice for the most stringent regulations.

4. User Error

A very common request by end users is the need to restore a file they accidentally deleted.  Yes… sometimes important files can be accidentally deleted by your own staff. Everyone makes mistakes and accidentally clicking ‘Delete’ instead of ‘Copy’ or ‘Rename’ should not be a reason for staff to need to spend their time re-creating a document. Data back-up with a properly planned retention policy ensures files can be restored in minutes as opposed to being lost forever. And, users are typically always incredibly thankful when you can restore the data they thought they lost.

What To Look For In A Data Backup Solution

Effective data backup solutions aren’t one-size-fits-all. The difference between a common data backup solution and one that is ideal is based on a number of key qualities and standards:

• Comprehensive Backups: The backup solution should provide both local onsite backup for quick recovery in instances of data loss, as well as an offsite cloud-based backup for when your business is hit with a critical disaster.
  
• (RTO) Recovery Time Objective: How long will it take to recover files, applications, servers, or full infrastructure?  Depending on your operational needs you should strongly consider how you would operate in the event of a catastrophic equipment failure or natural disaster. If your Disaster Recovery Plan includes a hot replication site which replicates your data offsite in a ready state, you will be able to quickly revert to this replication site and resume normal access to your data. Hot Site replication comes standard for our Virtual Data Center offering.
• Air-Gapped Backups: A copy of your data that is free from connectivity to the Internet and stored off-site, so it is not at risk of being impacted by the efforts of cybercriminals, ransomware, etc.
• (RPO) Recovery Point Objective: RPO is governed by the frequency of backups. In the past, backups were performed at the end of the week or at the end of the day. Today backups can be managed far more frequently, which is determined by a well planned out Data Retention Policy. That means very little to no data loss in the event of a recovery, and less work to re-do after a recovery.
• Regular Testing: You cannot assume your backups will work when needed. Your backups should be regularly tested to verify their effectiveness in the event that something goes wrong with your onsite data.
• Data Prioritization: Can your data backup solution select and prioritize your most important data for regular backup and testing? Or is all data treated the same?

If looking for a Secure and Reliable Backup Solution GO Concepts can help

We will provide you with a comprehensive and feature-rich data backup solution, providing a number of key advantages:

• Recover whole servers and systems in offline test environments.
• Convert the last viable backup into a hardware-independent virtual server that can stand in by fulfilling the roles of the production server until the environmental or physical problem is remediated.
• Select specific data items or critical systems to test the ability to recover on at least a quarterly basis, allowing you to establish and test not only a recovery point objective (RPO) but also a recovery time objective (RTO).
• Option to keep a copy of the backup data at your location along with the standard inclusion of it being backed up in our secure cloud environment. That protects you from data loss caused by accidental deletion, a mechanical failure, or a major failure such as fire, flood, or other disasters.
• Prevent ransomware from encrypting the backup data, a common technique used by hackers to hold companies hostage. 

Since 1997, GO Concepts has been expertly assisting both professional businesses and governmental entities with cost-effective, reliable and secure IT Support, Services, and Solutions. 

For more information on how to forge a successful IT relationship with your organization, and how to best leverage third-party cloud solutions and to ensure data security, visit GO Concepts online, email go@go-concepts.com or call (513) 934-8235.