Think data loss will never happen to you? ‘No one wants my data.’ ‘Hackers are after the big guys, not me.’ ‘Everything I do is in the cloud and they keep it safe.’ ‘Apple security is so good I don’t need to worry about anything.’ ‘I back up my data to an external drive, so I’m fine.’Data loss can significantly impact your business yet very few small businesses protect their data properly. After 30 years in IT, I’ve seen and heard it all, and there are a few things about data loss that no one tells you.
The number one cause of data loss is human error
Deleted files, overwritten files, staff responding to phishing emails or clicking links that that download viruses – I’ve not yet met a business who hasn’t experienced some form of data loss caused by human error.
Technology fails
The second biggest reason for data loss is hardware failure. Hard drives in computers and laptops do not last forever and neither do external hard drives. I have seen hard drives last 20 years, and others last only two years. It doesn’t matter whether the hard drive is under warranty or not as the warranty only covers the hardware, not your data.
You lose more than your data
If your computer fails, you get a virus, or get hacked, you also lose all of your set up. All the software, the settings, printers, Wi-Fi connection, even your login details. Nothing is left. This adds a crazy amount of stress and hours of wasted time finding and re-setting everything up. No one documents their set up, so you never actually know what you had until it’s gone.
Back up services are essential to protect you from data loss
It’s a common misconception that you don’t need to pay for a backup service as it’s inbuilt in Windows. This is semi-correct in that Windows does provide a backup option to an external USB hard drive. But…
Its horrendously slow, often taking hours
Its manual, relying on your memory to do it
You don’t know what parts of the system state has been backed up, and
Most people don’t know if they are doing it right
Apple users typically believe that iCloud backs their data up, but most don’t realise that this only happens if they make some setting changes or do manual backups. As businesses move to become more environmentally friendly, everything is electronic. This is great… until you lose your data. Photos, music, videos, family and company history, financial documents, legal agreements, business records and files, intellectual property, graphics – the only data that you shouldn’t have backed up is data you can afford to lose.
Cloud-based services and apps do NOT necessarily back up your data
Most people are under the mistaken impression that cloud-based services and apps back up their data but services such as Dropbox, Google Drive etc are not actually backing up your data. They are storing your data. Check their terms and you’ll see that they don’t guarantee data backups, they only guarantee access to it.
File sharing cloud-based services are the weakest link in the chain
File sharing services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud etc sync your data between computers and devices so you can access it anywhere, anytime. It’s a brilliant service and one of the key reasons we love them. But if you get crypto locked and your data is scrambled until you pay a ‘ransom’, the synced data is also scrambled. Even if these services and apps are able to provide you access to your data, the data itself is no longer useful and recognisable.
Everyone needs proper IT security
You can try to do it yourself, of course, but I’ve only ever seen regret from DIY’ers when something goes wrong. I have heard horror stories of lost revenue, lost customers, lost reputation, lost future business, even business closures. It’s just not worth the risk.Data loss can happen to anyone, any time, and the impact on your business can be devastating. Effective IT security is multi-layered, protecting you from human error, hardware failure, hackers, viruses, malware and ransomware.You wouldn’t run your business without the right insurance – let The IT Partners ‘insure’ your most important company tools – your computers and data.
Automated – it works in the background so you don’t even know it’s running
Fast – backups typically take minutes and don’t stop you from operating your business
Data encryption – we encrypt your data so no hacker can read it
28-day retention – we store multiple versions of backups so if you have a file that you update regularly, a spreadsheet for example, and realise that “it’s all wrong”, we can restore a version of that file up to 4 weeks ago, before “it went wrong”
Restore your set up – If your computer fails and you have to get a new one, we restore the most recent backup of your old computer onto the new hardware so that everything is exactly as it was before – bookmarks, programmes, email – everything
If operating system (OS) patching goes wrong and corrupts windows – we can fix that too
Contact us today to discuss how we can help you ‘insure’ your business against data loss.
