Humans generate 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day. That is a substantial amount of information. However, failing to keep up with the ever-changing threat landscape might wipe your share of this data in the blink of an eye. Ransomware has more than doubled in frequency since last year, accounting for 10% of verified breaches.
While there is a lot of fear surrounding cybersecurity, you don’t need to panic. There are measures you can put in place to protect your business better. One of our best recommendations is to make data backups a component of your cybersecurity plan. Companies that don’t regularly back up valuable data leave themselves vulnerable to evolving cyberthreats.
Data loss can occur due to multiple reasons that range from hard drive failures and ransomware attacks to natural disasters and human error. Whatever the reason, data backup can provide the relief you need by helping restore data on your devices should an incident occur.
When you decide to embark on your data backup journey to protect your organization and create business continuity, there are several myths you’ll come across. Here are four of the most common data backup tales:
Backup Myths Debunked
Myth #1: Data Backup Is Too Expensive
Data loss can cascade, resulting in downtime, productivity loss, revenue disruptions, regulatory fines, and reputational damage. The total cost of these setbacks is typically higher than the cost of a backup solution.
Myth #2: Having One Copy of Your Data Backed Up Is All You Need
The 3-2-1 strategy is a data backup best practice involving at least three copies of your data, two on-site but on different mediums/devices, and one off-site.
- Three copies of data: Having at least two additional copies of your data, in addition to your original data, is ideal.
- Two different mediums: Keep two copies of your data on different types of storage medium such as internal hard drives and removable storage like an external hard drive or a USB drive.
- One off-site copy: Keep one copy of your data off-site. This helps safeguard against worst-case scenarios.
Myth #3: Multiple Copies Guarantee Successful Backups
Having additional copies of your data by following the 3-2-1 strategy is a wise practice, but this doesn’t guarantee backups will operate as expected.
Organizations following the 3-2-1 strategy generally keep the original data and one of its copies on-site while another copy is transmitted to a safe, off-site destination, typically the cloud.
Beyond creating additional backup copies, regularly check to verify whether your backups are working properly since they may still be vulnerable to user error or data corruption. Routinely test backups or outsource the task to a managed service provider (MSP).
Myth #4: Data Backup and Disaster Recovery Are the Same
This misunderstanding stems from the fact that many people do not understand the difference between data backup and disaster recovery. Even though they are both vital components of business continuity, they are not the same.
While data backup is the act of backing up critical data, disaster recovery is the act of recovering those backups. Another distinction is that while data backup is defined by the recovery point objective (RPO), which is the amount of data that must be restored to keep operations running, disaster recovery is determined by the recovery time objective (RTO), which considers the time it takes to recover.
