March 31st is National Backup Day! Did you know that businesses fall victim to a ransomware attack roughly every 11 seconds? That’s an incredible amount of opportunities for criminals to infiltrate and gain access to your private business data. Backing up your data is critical to maintaining your most important information and helps keep it out of the hands of cyber criminals. It’s a process that you should routinely practice in your technology department so that precious data isn’t lost forever if your company undergoes a cyber-attack. In addition to preventing data loss, there are other reasons to back up your data on a regular basis, such as the following:
- Cybercrimes are on the rise. Early last year, ransomware attacks grew by about 715% as criminals began exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic and the numbers aren’t going down. Specifically, criminals are targeting email access to gain entry to private information by running common passwords and hoping one sticks. Imagine the fallout of not having access to your email or wondering what information has now fallen into the wrong hands or been deleted. In addition to backups, implementing robust security protocols and a business continuity and disaster recovery process (BCDR) will make a huge difference in combating cybercrime at your organization.
- Many cloud-base apps don’t backup data. Cloud-based systems such as Microsoft 365 often ensure that backups aren’t needed because they won’t lose your data. Due to this, many companies utilizing this kind of software assume that backups aren’t necessary which is potentially dangerous. Just because Microsoft won’t lose it, doesn’t mean your company won’t lose it if there is ever a breach or malicious deletion. Take ownership of protecting your data by backing it up so if worst case scenario becomes reality, you don’t have to experience the long wait times of your apps retrieving what’s missing.
- Small and mid-sized businesses are hit the hardest. In 2020, the average cost of downtime due to a cyber-attack was around $275,000. That’s a bill that not many small businesses can readily afford. In addition to internal data consequences due to a breach, client loyalty can also be lost if consumer data is compromised. A damaged reputation can be even more costly than a cyber-attack itself and makes investing in a security solution and a BCDR program even more worthwhile.
National Backup Day is a great reminder of the importance of data backups, but it is something that should be recognized every day at your organization. By consistently backing up your company data and implementing strong security practices within your organization, you can rest assured that you won’t be contributing to fraud statistics any time soon. Organizations that have a sound BCDR are less likely to experience significant downtime and are back up and running quickly. Not sure how your company’s security procedures stack up? BerganKDV can help. Take this free mini assessment that gives an overview of your cybersecurity measures and advice for next steps.
