In 2021, a cyber attack is expected to occur every 11 seconds and, over the past 12 months, the average cost of a data breach was US$3.86 million1. Let that sink in.
On top of monetary loss, a data breach can cause reputation damage, loss of valuable data and disruptions to your day-to-day operations. Using backups and recovery as a security tool is a key part of establishing an effective and comprehensive cyber protection strategy. Below are 5 ways you can protect your data and applications from the growing threats of today.
1. Follow the 3-2-1 Rule
In short, the 3-2-1 rule is based on the premise that you should have three versions of your data—your primary production data and then two backup versions. Your production data can live on-premises or in the cloud, and then you have two more versions housed in a different location—ideally, you’d save one version off-site somewhere. By following this simple principle, if you were ever compromised by an attack such as ransomware, you could quickly boot up one of your other two versions and continue to maintain business as usual.
2. Cloud Backup Technology
Protect and recover critical on-premise applications and systems with cloud backup technology. By having cloud backup technology in place, you’ll protect your data against loss as well as being able to reconstruct data if a cyber breach or system failure occurs. Cloud backup technology allows you to protect business data by copying data from servers, databases, desktops, laptops and other devices.
3. Backup and Recovery as-a-Service (BRaaS)
Using Backup and Recovery as-a-Service (BRaaS) is a cost-effective, secure and scalable way to meet your data protection and availability needs now and into the future. This means you can scale your data protection up or down to suit your changing demands, ensuring you’re always covered without paying for more than what you need.
4. Use Best Practice Data Governance and Processes
A data governance plan is essentially a process used to manage, use and protect your data. This can include the people, processes and technologies that come into play when managing and protecting business data. As well as protecting your data against cyber attacks and data breaches, a solid data governance plan also reduces data management costs and ensures all data is collected, stored and managed at the same standard.
5. Email Recovery
Emails play a critical role in business communication, which makes it important to ensure you have email recovery in place for any unforeseen events or breaches. Storing backups securely in a different location will help protect your business from data loss due to viruses, ransomware or corruption resulting from hardware failures. Sometimes it’s as simple as someone accidentally deleting an important email. Whatever the reason, having reliable email recovery in place will help save your business a headache and protect important emails when the unexpected happens.
When you consider that every organisation has a 1 in 4 chance of experiencing a cyber breach within the next two years2, you can’t afford not to have a comprehensive cyber security plan in place. Many organisations have security gaps that they don’t even know about, especially when it comes to data protection.
If you’d like to learn more about using backup and recovery as a security tool, get in touch with our team of experts.