While backing up data may seem straightforward, minor flaws can lead to significant disasters. Many companies understand that their backups are not as reliable as they pretend to be only after a system failure, a successful cyberattack, or accidental deletion.
However, the damage has already occurred. Consider the following best practices to keep your team, customers, and business safe.
1. Relying on a Single Backup
Your business will always be vulnerable. Hardware could fail, the administrator could accidentally delete important files, or the only copy could be erased due to a hacker attack. As the Data Protection Report from Veeam puts it, about 76% of enterprises faced data unavailability after a backup failure. This source is not reliable. You can never know which backup will fall at the right moment.
Multiple locations are the best countermeasure. They might be cloud storage, external hard drives, or an off-site server. In any case, if one fails, you will always have the opportunity to recover the data.
2. Not Updating Backup Schedules
Your backup schedule should match the pace of your business. For example, if your team works every day and your backups run only once a week, you have gaps.
Monroy cites Datto, which states that companies with poorly updated and monitored backup schedules lose an average of six hours of data. If your systems change daily, so should your backups, right? Daily backups are generally effective. Hourly backups safeguard your favorite data.
3. Skipping Backup Testing
Many businesses believe their backups are running properly if the system shows that the process is completed. However, it does not mean your files will be restored. According to the IDC research, approximately 58% of all backups become unsuitable for the recovery process due to errors they contain.
Regular testing allows you to confirm that your restore points are valid. Even if you do this monthly, it is better than having no checks at all. An ignored backup may turn out to have file permissions issues or contain corrupted information and invalid settings.
4. Keeping Backups in Unsafe Locations
Having a backup in the same physical location is much the same as having no protection—at the time something happens, floods, fires, break-ins, or hardware faults may destroy a lot of devices at once. According to FEMA’s tidbits, there’s a 40% probability that a small organization will not recover from a physical disaster.
Using a safe off-site location to store backups or cloud services is much better for your data. Should an issue arise in your primary business operations, the stored data remains unaffected. Spread the information in different areas to get a more reliable recovery and to be able to quickly recover.
5. Ignoring Cyber Threats During Backups
As cybercrime becomes more sophisticated, more and more attackers have taken to targeting backup files directly. Over a single year, the number of ransomware cases in the Verizon Data Breach Report grew by 13%, and many of those had the backup systems as a primary target.
Thus, it is paramount to protect backups as diligently as you back up the data. This approach means encrypting the files, minimizing access, and disconnecting the backup systems from the main network to make it hard for the attackers to get in.
Stronger Backups Build a Safer Business
By avoiding these mistakes, you can increase your business resilience. Multiple backup locations, updated schedules, regular testing, secure storage, and protection against cyber threats all combine to keep your data safe. And, when your backups do, in fact, function, you recover more quickly, prevent substantial work pauses, and save face.
