Imagine for a moment… it’s a little after nine on a Tuesday, those on your team who drink multiple cups of coffee are well into their second of the morning, and everyone is busily typing away. Suddenly, the typing stops, as everyone’s screen suddenly gets the same pop-up: everything’s been encrypted. The business is, in effect, gone.
This is a too-common occurrence nowadays, thanks to a nasty type of malware called ransomware… but there is a way to fight back. The smart move is to be prepared with a backup and disaster recovery (BDR) plan.
Backup and Disaster Recovery: Two Critical Parts
It’s easy to conflate having a backup with having a disaster recovery plan, but this is a relatively common misconception. In reality, your backup is one part of your overall business continuity plan.
Having a backup is simply having extra copies of your data. Disaster recovery is the strategy you have to use these extra copies and ensure your business can survive whatever incident has impacted it.
It Starts with a Trustworthy Backup
Before anything else, you need to know that your backed-up data will be available to you. We recommend following the 3-2-1 Backup Rule to achieve this certainty. This plan is summarized as follows:
- You have at least three copies of your data.
- You store these copies on at least two different storage media.
- You have at least one copy stored offsite, ideally in the cloud.
This strategy helps prevent any single disaster from completely destroying your data.
You Need an Overall Disaster Recovery Strategy for Comprehensive Preparedness
There are plenty of kinds of disasters that can impact your business, many of which are much more insidious than the fires and floods one might first think of:
- Hardware Failure - Unfortunately, any piece of your business technology could fail at any time. If this is something as mission-critical as a server, you could have a big problem.
- Human Error - Everyone makes mistakes; it’s just a question of how big a mistake it is. There’s a big difference between sending an email with a typo and deleting the contents of your business’ client records.
- Cyberattack - It’s far too easy for small and medium-sized businesses to mistakenly assume their size will protect them from a cyberattack. Modern malware targets anyone nowadays, often in the form of ransomware or other significant attack methods.
With an established BDR plan, you can be ready to bounce back from these events, giving you the peace of mind needed to focus on your mission and not the obstacles that could get in your way.
A Good Strategy Leads to Increased Confidence
We can help you develop this confidence by assisting you in creating the backup and disaster recovery strategies you need to protect your business, and by implementing and testing them to ensure their efficacy.
Of course, this works best before your business is actively dealing with a disaster, so don’t wait! Reach out to us at (954) 575-3992 to get started!
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