Top 5 Reasons to Backup Your Data

 

In the modern business landscape, businesses must take steps to proactively address service downtime and other issues caused by data loss. No matter what instigated the data disaster, if your business can’t bounce back in time, and customers feel that they can’t trust you with their data, then your business won’t stand a chance.

Unfortunately, most businesses are not equipped for any sort of extended downtime that can arise from data loss, especially SMB. Smaller businesses tend to be the most vulnerable due to their smaller dedicated IT budgets, but having backups at hand should be considered a minimal protective measure. After all, you don’t know when data loss will occur, only that it will. Let’s take a look at the five most important reasons why your business needs a comprehensive backup strategy. Learn the top 5 reasons to backup your data.

 

5. Preventive Measures Are Not Fool-Proof

When it comes to business data, it is always better to be safe than sorry. This is especially critical when it comes to sensitive or customer data, as your business needs to demonstrate that it is trustworthy. If data loss occurs, and you have no means to recover the data, you may experience extended downtimes that can result in devastating consequences, such as productivity dropping to zero and your customers taking their business elsewhere.

To prevent your business from cascading into unrecoverable losses, you must take precautions. The importance of backups cannot be understated: at the end of the day, a comprehensive backup strategy is simply the best defense against data loss. With a good backup system in place, you will have the ability to convert backups into fully-functional systems in a short amount of time, without suffering any crippling business consequences.

 

4. Endpoint Protection

Data is being considerably less centralized with modern business infrastructures, with more work being done outside the office through various devices such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones. However, these devices are constantly at risk of being stolen or hacked. And if you lose the device, you lose the data on it.

This is where having a comprehensive backup strategy can help. If you have a system in place that lets you upload data on your handheld device to a central repository, you will not run the risk of losing any essential data even if you lose the device. You and your team can still stay productive without missing a beat.

 

3. Play It Safe with Mother Nature

Mother Nature is inherently capricious. Even if you have the best people on the best hardware, a hurricane or an earthquake can still strike at any time and cause a total system outage. In a recent study by Nationwide Insurance, a whopping 68% of small businesses admit to not having a disaster recovery plan. Having good backups on hand prevents your business from grinding to a complete halt if a data disaster occurs.

Natural disasters may seem like a distant possibility, but it’s important to note that not every natural disaster comes with a weather warning. Everyday occurrences such as electrical fires, busted water pipes, and even failed air conditioning units can cause your office devices to go down and create a data disaster.

 

2. Ransomware

Ransomware can be devastating, and requires a good backup strategy in place to prevent a cascading effect of a few encrypted files destroying weeks or even months of productivity. Prevention is the first step to protection, and can save you a lot of headache and resources recovering data that never should have been lost in the first place. Unfortunately, cyberthreats such as ransomware are only getting more difficult to prevent. With the advent of malware-as-a-service (MaaS), anyone can easily purchase a malware package and deploy a ransomware attack without any technical know-how.

Ransomware attacks can be especially crippling for SMB, as they often lack the resources to fully protect themselves against malware. In such a case, having a backup you can restore from can help you save the day.

 

1. The Human Factor

Of all the things that could bring about a data disaster, the leading cause for businesses is actually human error. Recent surveys suggest that human error can cause anywhere between 25–75% of data loss incidents that occur in a given year. Human error is so commonplace because it is not always malicious. For example, a key file or folder can easily be overwritten or deleted by accident, but the issue might not be discovered until weeks or months later, when it becomes too late to salvage on the fly.

The other side of human error is when it becomes exploitable. One of the primary reasons why ransomware is so successful in infiltrating systems is that cybercriminals often don’t need sophisticated methods of attack to succeed—even if you have the means to deploy the most advanced firewalls and diligently maintain your system updates, attackers can utilize phishing and other types of social engineering to target your employees and have them be vectors in a malware attack. These techniques are often devastatingly effective in spreading malware infections.

 

Backups Can Save You from Total Data Loss

Keeping backups is the only foolproof way to mitigate total data loss. Natural disasters and human error can’t entirely be predicted or eliminated, but a backup strategy that includes a secure, offsite backup location can protect businesses of all sizes—especially small businesses—against data disasters of all kinds. When it comes down to it, if you can guarantee your customers that you have a solid data backup and recovery plan, you automatically stand above businesses that don’t.

Setting up a comprehensive backup system does not have to be expensive or complicated. Buffalo provides award-winning storage and backup solutions that are reliable and cost-effective. Contact us today to see how we can help you set up the perfect backup solution that meets your needs.

 

- Learn how-to Backup and Restore Files with a MiniStation Extreme portable hard drive featuring encryption with Windows here.

- Learn how-to use MiniStation Extreme to make a full image backup of a Windows 10 PC here.

- Whether you are backing up for home or business learn how to do this with ease here.