March 31st is World Backup Day. The threat landscape continues to change, and ransomware attacks and cyber-attacks are growing increasingly frequent and more sophisticated. There are things you can do to make sure your business is ready. With a multitude of cyber insurance options, the team at EPB&B insurance have years of dedicated experience in helping small businesses protect their assets.
What is a Backup: A backup is a copy of all your important files — for example, photos, documents and emails. Instead of storing it all in one place like a computer or smartphone, you keep a copy of everything somewhere safe.
Why making a backup important: One small accident, failure, or data breach can destroy all the data that keeps you business up and running. Data loss also sets back productivity timelines and can cause you to lose customers if it is accompanied by security breaches. According to New Era Technology , ninety four percent of companies that experience severe data loss do not recover.
While the right backup solution for each organization may be a little different, here are a few basic guidelines from EPB&B Cyber professional Justine Avera that every company should have in place to protect their data.
1. Make sure that one of your backup solutions is onto an air-gapped computer. This is a storage device that has no open network or internet connection, either wired or wireless. Backups and data are often transferred manually under human control, and the device is left offline and disconnected once the data transfer is complete which makes it harder to hack or corrupt or encrypt data.
2. Make sure you have three copies of your data on two separate storage solutions and types of media with one copy offsite or in the cloud. This is known as the 3-2-1 rule.
3. Test your backups and restoration regularly, and scan for signs of infection or corrupted data.
4. Have a paper backup of key contact and emergency procedure information in case all access to digital assets and operational systems are cut off.
Businesses that follow good back up procedures are less likely to be crippled in the event of a natural disaster, hardware crash or cyber event. Insurance companies will provide better terms and pricing for business income reimbursement coverage if you have a good backup plan in place. Finding the right insurance solutions is a key to minimizing disruption. Contact the team at EPB&B and our cyber professionals will help find the right insurance to protect your business.