Backing up your data? You should be.

We all live with a certain amount of dissociative identity. When we are at work, we are one version of ourselves but at home, we are another. We try to keep them as separate as possible, but we don’t realize how often they overlap. When we do ‘routine’ things like answer emails on our phones, use the same password for multiple accounts, or transfer customer data from our device(s) to the cloud, we are exponentially expanding the threat landscapes that hackers can navigate to corrupt our data, systems & networks. The National Archives & Records Administration in DC reported that 93% of businesses who lost their data for 10+ days filed for bankruptcy within one year – and half (50%) did so immediately. Knowing that roughly 60% of backups are incomplete and over 50% of restorations fail. Are you 100% confident that your firms’ backups are complete? Can your intellectual property & client data can be fully restored at a moment’s notice?

Mistakes happen. It really sums up the reality and the necessity for an adequate backup & recovery plan. Hackers, ransomware, insider threats, power outages, natural disasters, and human error. Every one of us likes to believe “that sucks, but they’ll never happen to me…” To put a new spin on an old proverb, three things in life are certain: death, taxes, and hackers. The FBI has said before that it is not a matter of if a business will be hacked, but when. In the age of information, our data is not only an extension of our identities and reality but could very well be like low hanging fruit to a bad actor on your network if not secured properly. The ability to fully backup & recover your firm’s data in the case of an incident could be the difference between a small fire easily put out and a full-on dumpster fire. Gartner revealed that 40% of the small to medium sized businesses managing their own networks and using the Internet for more than email will have their networks accessed by a hacker at some point this year. To make matters worse, more than 50% won’t even know they were hacked. Data privacy and security are not things you can turn on & off like a light switch. You can’t set limit orders or trailing stops to act as a cushion for data breaches. I think that we can all agree, people suck. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, they make mistakes and human errors are all too common. Criminals will always find new ways of infiltrating, exfiltrating, and corrupting data, systems and networks. The unexpected (power outages, computer crashes & natural disasters) really suck because when they hit; they coincidentally seem to hit at the worst possible time, every time. Ensuring accessibility to your data is a must in the society we live in today. The reassurance that your data will always be conveniently accessible and recoverable by your command makes it easy to go through your day without worry. From home, or the office.