This year, Discord suffered a data breach and an unknown amount of users had sensitive data leaked. The result? Discord had to shut down for a time while they rewrote code and improved their PR. This time spent repairing the damage and rebuilding their reputation has serious effects—even for a company as successful as Discord.
As a business owner, you know that a data breach can have devastating consequences—but every time your software alerts you to do a data backup, you brush it off. Are the two interconnected? Do you need regular data backups? Here is what you need to know.
What are Data Backups and How Do They Help?
Data backups are copies of your data that you can use to recover in the event of a software or hardware failure. When stored on a separate storage device, they protect your data from being accidentally lost, modified, or stolen. They help ensure that even if something goes wrong with a piece of hardware or software, you won’t lose important data.
As far as cybersecurity goes, backups are the preparation for the worst-case scenarios. Without them, you’ll be left scrambling to restore your data and trying to figure out what happened. So, if you don’t want to be in the same position as Discord, regular backups are a must.
What Data Should You Be Backing Up?
The type of data that needs to be backed up depends on your industry. For example, a financial services company needs to back up its customer data more than an eCommerce website does. Data backups should be happening regularly for all of your important data. This includes:
- Customer or user data
- Accounting information
- Internal communications and documents
- Source code and other software assets
- Data from IoT devices or any connected equipment
How to Backup: Common Strategies
Data backups are essential to the security of your business, but how do you actually go about it? There are several methods you can use for backing up data, but they all have their own benefits and drawbacks. Here is a breakdown of the most common strategies:
Local Backup: Using an external hard drive or other local storage devices like USB flash drives to store copies of your data. This is a reliable and cost-effective method.
Cloud Storage: Cloud storage services offer reliability and convenience when it comes to storing backups.
Hybrid Backup: Combining local and cloud storage can provide the best of both worlds—the reliability of a local backup with the convenience and scalability of cloud storage.
5 Best Practices
With a few regular practices in place, you can experience peace of mind.
1. Regular Data Backups
As often as possible, make sure that your data is being backed up so you can recover it should anything go wrong. You’ll want to set a schedule for regular backups, as well as run incremental backups throughout the week.
2. Use Multiple Backup Methods
Using multiple methods of backup gives you more control over how and where your data is stored and increases redundancy in case one of your backup methods fails.
3. Encrypt Your Data
Encryption is a way to protect your data from unauthorized access by scrambling it into an unreadable form. Even if the data were to be stolen, people would not be able to unscramble and make sense of it.
4. Protect Endpoints
Endpoints are any devices that have access to your data, such as computers, smartphones, tablets, and even IoT devices. Protect these points with strong authentication protocols and anti-malware software. Additionally, be sure to regularly patch the software on these endpoints.
5. Test Your Security
It’s important to regularly test the strength of your cybersecurity measures. Simulate attacks on yourself to make sure that your data is protected and secure. To do this, you can hire a security expert or use automated testing software.
Choose Realized Solutions: Choose Peace of Mind
You don’t have to be a cybersecurity expert or an IT guru—that’s where we come in. At Realized Solutions, we understand the importance of data security and know how to back up your data successfully. With our help, you can have peace of mind knowing that your business is safe from cyber threats. Get started today!
