12-27-21 | Blog Post
The most important asset of any business is its data. And protecting that data is the priority of each and every CIO. With the onslaught of Ransomware on the IT world, protecting mission critical data has become a major challenge. Cyber security solutions alone are no longer enough to keep data safe, companies need to educate their employees on the best practices of data security and protection.
If Ransomware and other cyber threats are not a concern in your organization, they should be. The incidence of Ransomware is up to the highest of all time and shows no sign of decline. To get an idea of how you can reduce the impact of Ransomware on your business, check out these best practices on data protection:
When it comes to protecting your company’s data, the most important solutions that you can implement are backup and disaster recovery. To do so effectively, your company should follow the 3-2-1 rule, which states that you should have 3 copies of your data over 2 different medias with 1 being offsite. By adhering to the 3-2-1 rule your company can reduce its vulnerabilities to catastrophic data loss and easily restore from a Ransomware attack.
Ransomware viruses can target your critical files, lock you out of your systems or delete your files until you pay a ransom. To combat these cyber threats, a good best practice is to rotate your drives for backups. In the event that your company is attacked, you have the advantage of an offline drive that was not infected but can be easily turned on and recovered from.
Though this seems obvious, you’d b surprised how many cyber attacks could be prevented if employees had followed appropriate password procedures. If you have not changed your standard issued “Password!” to something more complicated, this is for you. Strong user passwords are the first line of defense against hackers and cyber criminals. Attacks due to faulty passwords are often the most impactful and the most preventable.
As we mentioned above, backups and DR are an important part of your data protection. The more types of backup and DR solutions you implement and the more frequently you backup, the more protected your data is. To help you understand how often you should backup, identify your company’s recovery time and point objectives (RTPO). And just as the 3-2-1 rule outlines, the more copies of your data on multiple media the better.
The cloud is an amazing tool for fighting Ransomware. Storing your data offsite in cloud repositories makes it more difficult for cyber criminals to corrupt. To further ensure your data protection, consider using mixed repositories, Windows OS and otherwise. Multiple contingencies ensures that in the event of an attack you can easily restore.
Data protection is top of mind for all IT professionals. And while we should always be aware of what we are clicking and how it could affect our systems, there are actions to be taken to provide a peace of mind. Though there is no one solution that can 100% prevent a Ransomware attack, there are ways to reduce the impact of one. Follow the above best practices to better protect your data.
