Data loss is one of the biggest headaches modern businesses face. Whether the loss is malicious or accidental, the adverse effects are the same. Fortunately, the emergence of third-party data backup services such as VMware backup makes a positive difference. However, you also have a responsibility to safeguard your business data. In this post, we share expert tips on how you can protect your business’s sensitive data from different threats. Read on to gain insight into how best you can do it.
- Operate With a Lifecycle Time Structure
First, you should work with a defined time structure to succeed in your efforts. It’s critical to have a task calendar you complete daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and even annually. This time-bound framework should cover all sensitive and strategic data. This way, you will be better placed to map out your backed-up data’s lifecycle effectively for successful retrieval.
- Have a Data Recovery Plan
Next, you need a well-documented recovery plan. This plan should provide defined causes of action in response to all the potential data breach threats facing your business. It should spell clearly what your firm will do in the face of a given data disaster. Moreover, the plan should focus on the issues beyond ICT and other technicalities. For example, it has to spell out what happens should one of the employees accessing or managing sensitive data falls sick or resigns suddenly. In this case, it should detail how your business will move forward in their absence without compromising data integrity.
- External Hard Drives
Small businesses are also vulnerable to data breach risks. Therefore, every small business owner has to see themselves as potential victims and act in advance to avert disaster. For example, they have to buy and use external hard drives to back up their data. These tools are easy to use and affordable. Moreover, some of them also have backup programs.
- Local Area Network (LAN) Storage
If your business has a local area network (LAN), you can optimize it as storage tools. However, you have to be wary to ensure it’s located on a different site to avoid vulnerability to stealing, fires, or natural disasters. To enhance their backup capability, you can install servers in locked cages, closets, and cabinets.
- Mind Your Storage Location
To enhance your data security levels, you have to mind where you back your data. When backing your data to a given site, you should consider the ease of restoring it when the need arises. Therefore, use a mixed blend of local and offsite storage locations.
- Encryption Also Matters
It’s not enough to use an offsite solution to your data backup needs. You also have to encrypt your information. Why is it necessary? You have to do so because a third-party can easily find your backed up data online and abuse it. Fortunately, coding makes it impossible to use the data in case it gets into the wrong hands.
- Have a Systematic File Organization
When backing up your data, you need to factor in the ease of retrieving it. Therefore, the organization becomes a necessary part of the backup process, especially if you are dealing with huge information chunks. This way, it will be faster to access recovered information. Moreover, backing up your data with a systematic organization prevents the possibility of accidental deletion. Remember, accidental deletion by employees is one of the leading forms of internal data threats.
- Automate Your Backup Processes
Lastly, you have to automate your backup systems to succeed in your business data backup efforts. Although automatic data backup is typical today, many small businesses don’t exploit it fully to secure their sensitive information. One of the leading reasons for this failure is the lack of the necessary backup means to do it. Also, some of them fail in this area because they lack the technical know-how of doing it successfully. Therefore, we advise small business owners to invest in cloud backup services to meet these backup needs.
There you go with all the expert tips you need to boost your business’s data security. The ball is now in your court to implement them in your business and reap optimal data security benefits. If you need more help with your data backup needs, don’t hesitate to talk to our team today.