March 31 is known internationally as World Backup Day, a holiday that reminds everyone in the digital age how important it is to backup data in case of an emergency. At MDL Technology, this holiday is widely celebrated! Backing up data is one of our specialties and we want to make sure you celebrate this day the most efficient way possible by giving you tips on backing up your business data.
Photo credit: FutUndBeidl / Foter / CC BY
Create a Plan
Before you can start to backup your data, you need to come up with a plan for your data. Traditional backup where everything is put on a separate hard drive is old news. Plus, if you decide to backup randomly, you won’t have a secure system for ensuring all of your backup data is up-to-date. Strategize on a method and schedule to backup your data. Provide yourself insurance by choosing to backup in more than one location and method.
Crack Down on Employee Security
Employees are a huge risk to your business data security, even if they believe their actions are innocent. The way employees use company data and devices to access this data opens up your business to hacking and viruses, causing a loss of data. Cisco performed research on employees’ interactions with data to demonstrate how often company data is at risk:
- 44 percent of employees share their work devices without supervision.
- 46 percent of employees admitted they transferred files between work and home computers, leaving company data on their home computer.
- 18 percent of employees share their passwords with coworkers.
There are many ways you can circumvent this employee risk with various technical security measures in place, as outlined by CIO Magazine. But an easy and important way to keep data safe is by backing it up. You can put numerous security blocks in place for your employees, but data will still leak out. Continually backing up your data ensures you will not risk losing it in case of a hack or virus.
Encrypt the Data
To help protect against employee error, you can encrypt all of your data both on devices and in your backup system. The benefit of doing this in your backup system is that data acts like money in the bank’s vault. Only certain people will have access to it, reducing the risk of corruption.
Consider the Cloud
The cloud is one of the easiest and most secure ways to backup your data. The benefits are numerous. With the right cloud provider, your data will automatically backup every time there is a change. You can choose how the data is organized and accessed for your company’s convenience. And the cloud offers excellent encryption and other data security measures to keep your data safer than it would be in a physical data center or hard drive.
With these tips, consider using World Backup Day as a reminder to keep your company data safe and secure. In the event of an emergency, you can rest easy knowing your information is safeguarded.
