Today, March 31st, 2021 is World Back-up Day. It is a simple reminder for all leaders to ensure their data is secure and safely backed up. This may be seen as just a technical topic, however, today it is a critical part of your business for all leaders to be part of this conversation.
Data Is Most Important
Data is one of your most important parts of your organization. Your Team is invaluable along with your brand and reputation. If your data is gone, the rest will go with it too if you cannot recover in a timely fashion and satisfy all the stakeholders along a recovery.
When was the last time your company data was backed up, tested and restored to confirm all the data is backed up and can be restored to verify it actually is all there and can be used? Leaders are responsible to ensure this minimizes the threats of a cybersecurity attack or if there is a disaster such as equipment failure.
3-2-1
Many theories and recommendations for back-ups exist. The minimum to subscribe to is the 3-2-1 best practice. This always means your organization has 3 back-ups, 2 of them are live and 1 of them is offline. What does this all mean?
Live back-ups can be saved to storage devices in your location or the cloud. Just because it is saved in the cloud, it does not necessarily mean it is safe. Cybersecurity is the hottest topic we are facing in the Technology sector and protecting your data, your team and your infrastructure is top priority.
Is It Secret?
Shhhh! The 1 offline back-up needs to be secret and hidden from any possible threats. If your organization were attacked by a hacker and they penetrated your infrastructure and held ransom over your encrypted data, do you have an accessible, clean non-encrypted back-up?
Is this offline back-up a secret? If it is a secret, you can save your organization the burden of paying a ransom, restore your data and resume business operations. If they found the secret, then there are not many choices. Two choices are to pay the ransomware fee (a long, painful, expensive process) or re-create your data with your hard copies and team' memories (a long, painful, expensive process).
The 3-2-1 method ensures your organization is prepared if a disaster strikes, such as ransomware, helping you minimize unexpected downtime and expenses.
Is It Safe?
A safe, clean back-up is the key for leaders to ensure their data is protected. Take time to work with your IT Team and Trusted Advisor to review your current protocols in place. Things change quickly and there is no "one-time quick solution to fix all". Keeping data safe and secured involves implementing layers of security and updated regularly.
Bonus Tips
Have training and policies in place. Here are some examples: Ensure your team knows where to save data and where not to save data. Save data only on the company network and do not save data on your computer.
Educate on phishing (e-mail) and smishing (text) scams. Always be alert and question who the actual sender is and what they are sending/asking you to do. Pick up the phone and call the person to verify if they sent this if there is any doubt.
Leaders build their business continuity plans and disaster recovery plans to ensure the organization has a roadmap and resources in place in the event there is data loss or data breaches. Nothing is going to prevent and protect 100% and the key is doing your due diligence to minimize downtime and threats.
What are your business goals, how long can you operate without access to data and what are your stakeholders' expectations to keep the operations running in the event of data loss?
(Originally published on 03.31.21_
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