Data plays a critical role in the achievement of any business goals, which makes it an asset worth protecting. While you might work overtime to protect your data from any kind of mishandling, there is always the looming threat that is cybercrime. Once your customer’s data falls into the hands of cybercriminals, it has the potential to cripple your business, if not make it obsolete.
Not only can these criminals use this data as a channel for identity theft, but such a loss also leads to further damage to the reputation of the affected business. In fact, 60% of companies affected by cybercrime go out of business within six months after an attack, according to Inc. However, this doesn’t have to be your business as long as you can invest in strong cloud backup and disaster recovery solutions.
The question is: what makes cloud-based solutions the best for protecting your business’ future? Here is a dive into the world of using cloud-based solutions to fight against cybercrime:
The Conventional Backup and Disaster Recovery Scene
The traditional approach to disaster recovery and data backup was that businesses had to use multiple storage media to backup their data. This would mean using multiple flash disks among other storage devices. The throwback of this method is that it was a little bit inefficient when it came to storing updated versions of data, especially if updates were done pretty often.
For instance, if you have to back it up in three different storage locations, then you have to have all devices with you whenever you would like to back up anything. This slowly allows some room for error as it is quite easy to make mistakes in the process. Additionally, it can be quite tough to recover the latest version of data during the aftermath of a data breach or loss, especially if the backed up versions are not the latest ones.
What Makes Cloud Solutions The Best?
Cloud-based data backup and disaster recovery solutions need little to no human intervention. You can automate the backing up of your data using a preset priority module. In other words, more volatile data that is frequently updated will be backed up more often than the rest. Data can also be backed up in real time. This makes it easy to access the latest data version in case the need for server disaster recovery arises.
You can also access your data from any geographical location, unlike the traditional approach where you needed to have the device you stored the data in. Despite the above benefits, it is still wise to store your data on other platforms apart from the cloud to lower the risk of losing it.
The Best Solution Should Allow Quick Data Recovery
How fast can you recover the data that you lost? A good solution should make it easy to do so in spite of your geographical location. In case you accidentally overwrite a version of the data that contained critical information, it should also be possible to revert back to that version. This means that you need to pick a solution that allows you to save multiple versions of the same document.
Security Considerations to Look Out For
Traditional backup methods can easily get lost, stolen or even get damaged when exposed to hazards, but at least the user is in control of their fate. As for cloud storage, your fate partially lies in the hands of your cloud vendor’s effectiveness, which makes choosing the right vendor crucial. Look out for factors such as two-factor verification for accessing your data to lower the risk of a breach.
It’s also wise to focus on vendors that offer you strong encryption services, or even double encryption options. Ensure that they have a well-described deletion policy to identify what will happen to the older versions of your data. Working with a vendor with a minimal history of security breaches is also wise.
Conclusion
A data breach can happen to any business. It all depends on how prepared yours will be. Work with a cloud-based data backup and disaster recovery solution to safeguard your business’ future.