Throughout the first quarter, we continue to make personal and professional resolutions for a strong year ahead. But there’s one resolution you might be overlooking: the data backup strategy at your organization. FEMA reports that one in five companies lack a comprehensive data backup and disaster recovery plan and one quarter of businesses do not reopen after experiencing a disaster. If you do have a backup strategy in place, is it sufficient to mitigate the latest threats? Could it use a bit of improvement? As we head into the new year, now is the time to resolve to implement or update a robust and effective backup strategy to protect your operations and your people. 

In this post, we share three considerations to keep in mind as your revise your backup strategy.

Get your Head in the Cloud: Are you properly backing up your cloud data?

More and more organizations are moving to the cloud to increase efficiency and reduce costs. In fact, more than 94% of companies used cloud services in 2022, and the number is expected to grow in the year ahead. Shifting to the cloud reduces the number of resources your team must maintain, but it also means there’s a lot more data floating in the cloud and hence more opportunities for cybercriminals to take advantage of this information. It can be a veritable treasure trove for nefarious actors.

As you take stock of your data backup strategy, conduct an inventory of your various cloud application vendors. Many vendors don’t offer a robust backup function as part of their service, which can expose your information to cybercriminals via APIs. It’s important to know where your data resides, across all your cloud activity. Take a close look at your cloud services and vendors and develop a plan for all business-specific applications that currently lack a proper backup strategy.

It's an especially important consideration, given that damaging ransomware attacks will remain a threat in 2023. The best defense against ransomware is to have a robust data backup and recovery plan in place. If you have a copy of all your data—including cloud data—an attacker can't really hold anything ransom. A data backup solution can’t prevent an attack, but it can minimize damage and get you back up and running more quickly. Backing up your cloud data will also protect your business from other unforeseen disasters, like a natural disaster, human error, fire or flood, or even another world-changing pandemic. 

Never Assume: Are you backing up the right applications?

This brings us to the second consideration. In addition to your cloud services, take stock of ALL your applications to identify which ones may lack a proper backup strategy. You might be surprised at what you discover. 

For example, Microsoft Office is often assumed to come complete with robust data backup solution—it does not. Your Office 365 subscriber data, which includes mailboxes and files in OneDrive and SharePoint, are not backed up as part of your Microsoft subscription. This data can not only be the target of a cyberattack, but can also be accidentally lost or deleted through simple human (user) error. While Microsoft provides basic archiving and retention of this data, it can’t ensure fast and full restoration in the event of data loss. (Luckily, third-party providers like N8 Solutions offer a streamlined solution. Here’s more details on how to protect your Office 365 data.)

In short, when it comes to protecting, accessing, and restoring your data, you should understand where a vendor’s responsibility ends and yours begins. After you’ve conducted a full data backup inventory of your existing applications, don’t forget to apply the same due diligence for any new applications that you implement in the year ahead. A good rule of thumb is to onboard all new applications through an official process to ensure the tool is fully included in your overall recovery plan and backup schedule.

Like Having an Extra Set of Keys: Are you your backups immutable?

The third suggestion to revise your data backup strategy in 2023 is to consider your backups themselves. Just as we have a spare set of keys or a backup phone charger, we need to think about how protected our backed-up data really is. Today, sophisticated malware attacks are specifically targeting backed-up data to maximize the damage on your business. 

The only way to protect your backed-up data is through a process known as immutable backups, which means that once your backup data is written, it can never be changed, overwritten, or deleted. With immutable backups, your data can’t be read, modified, or deleted by clients on your network. Which means that even if a hacker can access your backed-up data, they won’t be able to manipulate it, or to hold your business hostage with a steep ransom demand. (For more, see this previous post on four simple consideration in choosing a backup solution.) 

The risk you face is real: A whopping 96% of organizations reported at least one outage in the past three years. According to a 2022 report, the average cost of downtime is $1,467 per minute.

Resolve to make 2023 the year you revise your data backup strategy for full and complete protection against the latest threats. The good news is, you can rely on trusted third-party experts, like N8 Solutions, to help you asses the strength of your backup plan, and to implement new tools and strategies to plug any holes that do exist. Ready to evolve your backup strategy? Smart choice! Please get in touch with us today.