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Given the growing incidents of cyber thefts, data leaks, site breaches and hacks, the need to back up critical data is something that no business can afford to disregard. Any such cyber attack can inflict unspeakable damage to businesses, both big and small. For instance, the NotPetya malware managed to target big businesses in Ukraine by using tax software which had been infected. In another such incident, cyber thieves managed to get their hands on data belonging to as many as 148 million people when they successfully hacked into a credit reporting agency Equifax. These are only a couple of serious incidents which highlight the need for file backups but there have been many more in the last year which shows that businesses were not taking backups seriously enough.
Data loss or damage can cause downtimes, hamper productivity and inflict long-term harm to your business reputation and credibility in the market. Reports suggest that as many as 80% of the businesses which are victims of data theft tend to shut down their operations within the next few years. As many as 40% go out of operation within a year itself. Whether it is man-made disasters or natural calamities or breaches carried out by cybercriminals, you need to back up your data so that it can be retrieved seamlessly. In other words, it is the task of IT managers to ensure that there is a proper Disaster Recovery plan in place should the need arise.
Backups and disaster recovery plans are not the same thing; while backups are copies of the data which can help your business renew its operations, disaster recovery refers to tools and methods for recovering lose data or systems when disasters happen. Below are some important reasons which make file backups imperative for your business in today’s age:
Threats are not going to fade away; rather, they will be become more and more challenging to deal with. With every year, the incidents of data thefts are increasing and this year is not going to be an exception. Ransomware attacks, breaches and attacks using cutting-edge technologies like hacking using artificial intelligence have become the order of the day. Reports suggest that businesses handling very sensitive information are likely to be the new targets. Cyber attacks have been declared as the third biggest threat for the globe after extreme weather occurrences and natural calamities. So, every business needs to pay extra attention when it comes to including disaster recovery plans in their business plans.
For modern businesses, data loss is perhaps the gravest threat because data is integral to their functioning and in the event of data loss, downtime gets triggered. This will translate into huge economic losses for the businesses. Due to sudden power outages, downtimes can occur and these have been seen to inflict losses to the tune of millions of dollars for big businesses. Unless backups are made, such instances of downtime will go unresolved because the numbers are expected to increase in 2018.
From only 17% in 2015 Big Data adoption rate has increased to almost 53% in the previous year. This shows how fast Big Data and Internet of Things are going to become part of our daily lives. Big Data has become the rule for businesses rather than the exception. There are analytical tools which gives a business prescriptive and predictive insight into how it is running and how to take better-informed decisions for the future. At the same time, if there is any breach by accident, it will amount to loss of both critical data and personal data. So, with the continuous evolution of Big Data, it is becoming more critical and complex by nature. This means that businesses will have to adopt robust backup and disaster recovery solutions to tackle cyber threats.
When there are breaches, businesses are not only affected by revenue losses, but also by loss of reputation and credibility. So, when popular brands are hit by breaches, consumers slowly start to move away from them. Apart from the loss of reputation, precious time is lost because data recovery is time-consuming and no new work gets done during this period.
Risk management is absolutely imperative in digital transformation of enterprises. Businesses must be capable enough to address shortfalls and downtimes. So, there must be a robust and secure ecosystem in place to withstand such unprecedented calamities caused by infrastructure collapse or outage or cyber attacks.
Enterprise data is being increasingly managed by a wide range of devices like smartphones and laptops. This helps to improve remote work culture but this means that there are now more end points for data storage. Such end points are not restricted to the workplace anymore; they can be anywhere in the world. So, it is important to have backups for these endpoint devices to ensure that even if the devices get affected there is a central data repository which remains secure. Here, cloud data solutions are perhaps the safest and most resilient for data security purposes.
Finally, data which is backed up can always help you to analyze and formulate business strategies better. You may use this backed up data for data mining and data analysis, patch testing and application testing.
For Interesting Topics : How To Restore A Backup?
