Best practices for backup and disaster recovery to secure your data

Without your data, you may be nothing.

How valuable is data to your business? If you lost all your customer and financial records or employee documentation, how long could you stay in business?

Data loss can happen in a variety of ways: hard drive failures, ransomware attacks and hacks, human error, or even physical theft. What’s more, a data security breach that leads to loss also leads to downtime, the cost of which can be expensive both in dollars and in reputation.

Develop your recovery plan far ahead of any need for it. You want to be prepared for the worst-case scenario. Much of the time, you can plan to recover lost data from a backup stored onsite. However, you’ll need an offsite alternative if your building or servers aren’t accessible in the case of fire, a weather incident, or similar circumstance.

No matter how the loss happens, a data backup can restore the lost information and get you back up and running with minimal downtime. Norton suggests thinking of a data backup as the bedrock of your digital disaster recovery plan. By backing up your devices, you’re already one step ahead of any threats that might result in data loss.

Top 5 things to think about when planning for backup and disaster recovery:

• Data redundancy: Storing your data in one location is simply irresponsible. Managed backup immediately takes that data offsite and stores it for up to a year in a secure location.
• Monitoring: A set-it-and-forget-it approach to data backups can leave you vulnerable to errors. We advise consistently monitoring your backup protocols to ensure they are working properly, and nothing is going wrong with your data.
• Testing data restores: Anyone can tell you something works, but it’s even better to ensure that something is working, particularly when it’s protecting the lifeblood of your business, your data. Testing your data restorations can verify that you’re getting exactly what you need for recovery.
• Ransomware protection: It seems like every day we hear about a new data breach, ransomware attack, or other hack. Rather than worry about what if it happens to you, protect yourself. Even if you are hacked, simply roll back to unencrypted data. No ransom. No sweat. No loss.
• Eliminate downtime: How much would you lose in productivity, hard costs and client good will in just one day if your network is down? With managed data backup, in the event of a data loss, you will be back up and running in minutes, not hours or days. According to Gartner, the average cost of IT downtime is $5,600 per minute. Cost of Downtime (per hour) = Lost Revenue + Lost Productivity + Recovery Costs + Intangible Costs.

At the end of the day, the best data backup and recovery solution is one that suits your needs. Successful organizations cannot afford to put themselves at risk, especially when it comes to information systems and the data they contain. The expert team at Mobius Partners can help keep your organization protected. Learn more by contacting Scott Gondesen, Director of SMB Solutions, at scottg@mobiuspartners.com or 281-601-4800 x 106.

To request a free detailed security risk report and remediation plan, contact info@mobiuspartners.com or visit mobiuspartners.com/risk.