Are You Properly Backing Up Your Business Data?
It may be a new year, but there is still the same risk of cybercrime. Data backup is crucial if you want to truly protect your business’s continuity. If you have currently only backed up your data onto a single desktop/laptop computer or some sort of mobile device, you’re doing it wrong.
In fact, according to FBI statistics, 97% of stolen laptops/desktops are never recovered. In the case that those items are lost or stolen, all your business data will be gone. You may be thinking that your business data would be safe on paper copies as well.
However, this still isn’t adequate data protection. In the case of your business premises flooding or burning down, your data could be irretrievably lost. It is obvious to say that both companies and people are very dependent on their data.
While it is impossible for a person to survive without water, air, and food, businesses are unable to survive without their data. In fact, 40% of companies do not have the proper disaster recovery or proper backup in place to survive a disaster.
What Are the Risks of Not Backing Up Data?
Losing your data as a business can lead to many substantial problems. When speaking from an operations standpoint, it can lead to a huge loss in productivity. When speaking from a historical standpoint, it means that all the data your company has collected, perfected, and analyzed for years, sometimes even decades, can be permanently lost.
When you don’t backup your information regularly, you could risk losing this data:
- Accounting information
- Customer data
- Historical records
- Employee records
- Contracts and partner information
- Legal documents
Data loss can affect company operations in many ways such as:
- Lost partnerships
- Lost productivity
- Lost effectiveness
- Lost respect
- Lost reputation
- Lost support
- Lost customer service
- Lost revenue
In addition to losing all your crucial business data, much of the data handled by companies contains sensitive information. For example, every single company must keep records on employees and has many databases full of customer information. If this personal information becomes compromised, companies can face huge consequences.
Losing such personal data can lead to:
- A tarnished reputation
- Fines
- Penalties
- Class action lawsuit
Why Backing Up Files Isn’t Enough
Backing up your data is an absolute must. To achieve adequate data protection, you need to ensure that you have an established data backup system that follows the steps below:
- Backup business data constantly
- Create backups on reliable media or in the cloud
- If using media for backups, keep the device in an off-site, secure location
One of the most basic yet crucial rules for business data protection is that if losing the data would interfere with usual business, you need to back it up. While desktop software programs can simply be reinstalled, recovering vital details of transactions or business correspondence is impossible if the files have been damaged beyond repair or lost.
Why Are Backups Necessary?
The main purpose of a data backup is to create a copy of the data that can be recovered should a primary data failure occur. These data failures are often the results of software or hardware failure, a human-caused event such as a malicious attack, data corruption, or accidental deletion.
Best Data Backup Practices
If you’re looking to backup your data in the best way possible, you need to keep multiple copies. Here are some of the best data backup practices:
- Use the strongest passwords possible and make sure that you change them on a regular basis.
- USB sticks/thumb drives are ideal for quick data backups and are reliable.
- Buying and using an external hard drive for data backups is a great and almost always recommended method for data backups.
- If you have a local area network, also known as LAN, you can backup files to other servers or computers. To prevent theft, install the server in a cabinet, locked cage, or closet.
- If you have lots of data to backup, tape backups are a great option as they are reliable and able to store large amounts of data.
The Bottom Line
Nowadays, nothing is worth the risk of losing your essential business data. The best defense against such a disaster is ensuring that you have the proper data protection. When you create a reliable backup system that also includes both archiving and backing up your business data properly and regularly, you will ensure that your business will be able to weather whatever storm it faces and easily carry on.
Remember this, you can never have too many data backups. In today’s day and age, businesses need a backup and disaster and recovery plan. If you don’t know where to start, it can be a daunting task.
If you need guidance get in touch with us here , we can help!
