We live in the information age. Computers and data management are critical components of customer communication, employee productivity, streamlined operations and strategic business competitiveness. Proactive safeguarding against data loss should be embraced by all companies. Being reactive in this area could result in significant downtime, loss of reputation, and substantial consumer liability in the event of a disaster, data deletion or a data breach. Here is a roundup of the six most typical reasons for data loss:
- Power outage (average customer experiences 1.3 failures lasting 4 hours per year)
- Accidents or disaster
- Accidental deletion
- Hard drive failure (20% will fail within 3 years)
- Laptop theft (every minute a laptop is stolen or left behind at an airport)
- Virus or malware
While they can sometimes be interchangeable, it is worth making a distinction between temporary data unavailability, lost data or confidential data breach.
Of the six examples above, the first two - power failure or natural disasters - are more examples of lapses in access to data. Of course, an accident such as a fire or a coffee spill could cause disc damage akin to a hard drive failure. An accidental deletion could result in data becoming corrupted and therefore unrecoverable. Work not saved would need to be re-done or re-created. When a laptop is stolen from, say, a coffee shop or is disposed without properly wiping the hard drive, there's a risk that sensitive information is now in the hands of a third party -who may or may not use such sensitive data perniciously. Finally, data theft is when your company's information is purposefully pirated (say consumers’ credit card accounts) with bad intention or is locked up and released only upon paying a ransom. These three classifications go from bad to worse. They range from inconvenience to crippled operations to reputation damage or even civil liability.
Due to increased press coverage, the massive security breaches experienced by publicly traded companies tend to be top of mind, even years after the event. However, SMBs (small to medium sized businesses) receive 43% of cyber attacks and suffer debilitating losses that range in thousands, if not tens of thousands, in damage with each occurrence. To mitigate the frequency and severity of these events, we suggest the following physical and procedural protocols:
- Use a surge protector
- Install and update anti-virus software while encrypting data communications
- Deploy a hybrid backup infrastructure, using local machines and cloud storage while operating with 3 databases - one active, one physical backup and one virtual backup.
- Conduct employee security awareness training reminding them to be mindful about their surroundings, liquids near their computers, and being wary of suspicious emails or attachments.
- Repeatedly train and inform your employees of phishing schemes
- Institute routine and smart password management techniques, including double authentication
- Schedule periodic review of employee permission levels - be it monthly or quarterly - as associates come and go or change roles
- Stay abreast of cyber piracy schemes
It is understandable that many companies prefer to maintain total control of their environment and workforce; with the frequency and sophistication of cybercrimes, an outsourced IT provider can provide more extensive disaster recovery planning, cloud based backup for business, and can execute data protection procedures apprising companies about the latest schemes and viruses. By increasing such data security awareness through regular checks, there's a decrease in insular or group thinking about the scope and frequency of risks out there. A2Z Business IT is part of the 20 and has been providing world-class technical support to thousands of companies for the past two decades. Call us at (914) 821-5660.
