How Do You Backup Your Data?

Whether you are a start-up about to embark on your journey to greatness or an established business, fundamental IT best practices are your responsibility.

Data is most likely to be the lifeblood of your organisation; without it:

• How can you operate?
• Your team that actually does the work providing the services you bill for needs that data to perform their jobs?
• Finance teams cannot process invoices and reconcile bank accounts without the information that demonstrates what work has been undertaken.
• And the business decision-makers and owners are unable to review the metrics or KPIs that show "how you are doing"?

So why is backup so often overlooked?

In some ways, it is like flossing your teeth each day. If you don't floss, nothing "bad" may happen today, but over time there is a higher likelihood that plaque will lead to gum disease, and then things go downhill from there. It's very boring, but we all know it's a?very good idea!

There are similarities with backup. If you don't back up today, the chances of some disaster deleting the only copy of your files are relatively small. But over time, the risk of a devastating event occurring, will increase.

There are several ways that data can be lost or compromised.

1. Accidental deletion.

Most cloud-based systems (such as Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace) will retain copies of your data for a month. But on day 32, it has gone.

Microsoft and Google don't make this super explicit, but to be clear: Data in the cloud is NOT backup.?I repeat: having your data in SharePoint or Google Drive does not mean it is backed up!

2. Ransomware.

This kind of pernicious attack can encrypt your data, be it on your desktop or in the cloud and hold it to ransom - and push you to pay (in Bitcoin, not Mastercard!) to have it unencrypted. And there is no guarantee that you will get the data?decrypted!

3.?Malicious deletion.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, new malware has been detected that does not seek to hold your data to ransom. It's sole intent is to irrevocably delete data.?Scary stuff.?And of course, it may not be malware that tries to delete the data - think about disgruntled employees.

What is best practice?

We have found that a?"backup by default"?approach reduces the chances of data every being prone to a permanent deletion.

To give a clear example, we deploy?cloud-system backup solutions?for all our managed clients. In brief, we link a company's Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace environment to a separate cloud backup system that cannot be infected or encrypted. All data: email, sites and drives are backed up multiple times per day. If data is lost or attacked, we have a full and time-stamped version of all data, files and email that can be recovered in the event of a calamity.

Here at?ITGUYS, we really do worry about our clients and their cyber risk position. Communicating these clear-and-present dangers is part of our role as their outsourced IT department. And backing up is so crucial that all our plans include?backing up by default.

For futher assistance click?here?to book a call with Ben.