Acronis Backup, Blog, Data Protection
Introduction
According to some reports from tech industry leaders like Cisco and Microsoft, cyber attacks against businesses of any size are on the rise and are doing more damage than ever before. In fact, if you review Cisco's 2017 Annual Cybersecurity Report, you shall see that the numbers related to ransomware attacks and other such are very alarming. In the report, we also learn that businesses have a lot more to lose than just the money or data during an attack (and also why a corporate data backup strategy is essential). Consider these sobering facts for a moment:
Some Facts about Cyber Attacks and Data Loss
Nearly 29 percent of businesses who are victims of attacks lose revenue with almost 40 percent of them losing more than 20 percent of their total revenues. There are more than half of all businesses who are victims of a cyber-attack or data breach and are subsequently subject to public scrutiny and suffer losses in brand reputation, customer loyalty, and customer trust. There is more than 20 percent of businesses which experience data loss or suffer a cyber-attack and lose their customers. And, 40 percent of these companies lose more than 20% of their customers.
Among companies that suffer attacks or breaches, nearly a quarter of them lose significant business opportunities following the data-loss event.
It is evident that the results of data loss due to cyber attacks can be devastating for business. However, as we will soon cover, you shall see that cyber attacks and ransomware are not the only threats to your business data. In this article, we shall discuss various threats for your business data and the effective data disaster recovery plan that can help you stay protected against them.
Risks to Business Data Are Everywhere
There are reports of malicious software and hackers everywhere these days. While these types of threats do pose a significant risk for businesses, they also certainly are not the only ones out there. Keeping that in mind, we shall cover some of the things that might threaten your business data and put at risk on a daily basis.
Viruses, Hackers, and Ransomware
You can clearly see that cyber attacks are wreaking havoc for businesses everywhere. While hackers and ransomware outbreaks are causing damage and making headlines, old-school malware and various old-fashioned viruses continue to be amongst the leading reasons for system breaches and data loss. With these types of threats, it is only a matter of when your business falls prey to them. Anti-virus and Anti-malware software can help. Still, even after updated security software, most businesses remain exposed to the threat of data loss due to hackers, malware, and ransomware.
Physical Disasters
There are many reports of cyber attacks, malware and hackers these days, it is very easy to overlook some of the various conventional physical threats that your data faces daily. A fire, flood or any other type of natural disaster can wipe out all of your data in the location and make recovery virtually impossible for you. And, if you don't have multiple backups available, a simple theft or hard drive storage device could result in significant loss anytime. You should never take it for granted, the very possibility of hard drive failures and other types of hardware mishaps.
Protecting Business Data: Backup Basics
In simple terms, a data backup is just a copy of the files from your computer or the drive. As illustrated with numerous threats as stated above, keeping a backup of your important business files and data are essential for several important reasons.
Virtually, all computer and technology experts shall tell you that any backup is better than nothing at all. Nevertheless, not all kind of backup devices and technologies are the same, nor do they all offer the same level of protection. Consequently, for optimum protection, it is best to safeguard your data using what we hear at Acronis as the 3-2-1 rule. If you put it simply, the 3-2-1 rule states that you should:
At least keep three (3) copies of the data ( which means no single event will destroy all the copies);
Keep the data in at least two (2) different formats (i.e., disk, tape, cloud, etc.)
Store one (1) copy offsite to protect your data against fire, flood, theft, and other physical disasters.
To give you an idea of all the options that help you implement the 3-2-1 rule, let us take a look at some of the most common methods which businesses use to back up the data.
Local and Network Backups
The easiest way to create backups of business data is by simply storing copies of critical files on tape drives, hard drives or other storage devices connected to your network or systems. Copying files to USB flash drives, hard drives, external drives or other devices attached to individual systems or devices which are connected via a local or a wide area network is an effective way of ensuring that backups are available locally whenever you need them. With any good data recovery plan, keeping local copies of the backups is essential. However, due to various risks associated with physical disasters, theft, ransomware and other threats, keeping local backups should not be the only part of your strategy. In addition to keeping up to date, local backups also ensure to store at least one of the copy offsite as is required with the 3-2-1 rule (i.e. an offsite backup server or i the cloud.)
Cloud Backups
You hear news about businesses migrating to the cloud almost every day (or running software and systems remotely via the internet). And, backup solutions are also no exceptions. In short, cloud backups are a secure offsite copy of data that is stored on remote servers which can be accessed via an Internet connection anytime. Cloud backups are an excellent option for providing additional redundancy security for businesses who want to ensure that their important data is available if and when onsite or physical disaster strikes.
Cloud Backups and Online File Storage Are Not the Same
Many businesses use Dropbox, Google Drive or any other online storage website to store backup copies of important files. While such types of services are okay for sharing and storing few files, there are drawbacks with the online storage sites (i.e., limited file versioning, limited backup folders, lack of automated backups, etc. ) prevent them from being real cloud backups. A real cloud backup service enables you to create automatic backups of complete systems and store various versions of reserves as much as you need.
Acronis Backup 12.5 – The Trusted Backup Solution for Business
As stated above, there are various ways for your business to create backups of crucial data, and you should use multiple methods and practices for ensuring that your files are always available when needed. Therefore, your business needs a backup solution which provides maximum ease of use and compatibility across mediums and platforms of all types that you need and use.
Acronis Backup 12.5 is the right solution. It is very popular and trusted by more than half a million businesses worldwide, Acronis Backup 12.5 enables your entire team to create complete backups with as few as three mouse clicks. An award-winning backup software, you can choose to backup your entire systems, or limit backups to only mission-critical files and data.
Get up and running with the World's Fastest Data Recovery.
Whenever a disaster strikes, every minute your team is without any data could cost your business resources, money as well as customers! When you need to restore your data from a backup, a quick data recovery is essential to get up and to run again as quickly as possible. With Acronis Instant Restore, backup recoveries which used to take hours (or even days) now takes seconds. Fast backup and recovery is just the start of it, though.
Acronis Premium Backup and Data Security Features for Business
Acronis Backup 12.5 is a premier backup and data protection solution for your business. With more than 500,000 companies all over the world agreeing to it. Its software provides businesses with complete protection features that just can’t be found anywhere else. Here are some of the benefits that Acronis Backup 12.5 has to deliver:
Disk-Imaging Backups – Our software enables protection of your entire business with complete backup images of the systems- not just selected files and folders.
Extensive Compatibility – It works with all major operating systems. Not only is it compatible with Windows and Mac but the software also provides top-notch Linux server data protection too.
Virtual Server Protection – The future of business operations and software are virtual machines and servers. With Acronis Backup you can perform a VM backup easily with a physical machine. Acronis Backup 12.5 supports six of the leading hypervisor platforms and migrations between virtual and physical environments
Bare-Metal Recovery – With Acronis Backup 12.5, reduce RTOs with bare-metal recoveries. With bare metal recovery technology restore systems to dissimilar hardware, automate recoveries with scripting and even restore servers via WAN
Flexible Storage Options – With the help of Acronis Backup 12.5, you can reduce your RTOs by being able to back up virtually to any local or network-based storage device. Without any need to deploy expensive backup or media server as well. Our software not only provides backup to hard drives and external drives but it also lets you backup to autoloaders, tape drive and libraries, NAS, SAN and secure Acronis cloud. No other backup software provides such storage options.
Acronis Backup 12.5 offers its customers power and features that its competition just can’t match. If you really want to find out for yourself as to why Acronis Backup is the best data protection solution for your business, we encourage you to start your free trial today.