By protecting your digital assets from the ever-growing threat of cyber incidents and reducing the risk of data loss, you position yourself and your business for success in the long run.
Making daily backups will play a pivotal role in reducing the risk of data loss due to hardware failure, natural disasters, or human error.
What is the Essential Eight?
The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) developed the Essential Eight mitigation strategies to help organisations avoid or lower the risk of cyber incidents. The strategies are ranked by maturity, and cover three areas: prevention, limitation, and recovery.
The Essential Eight mitigation strategies are:
- Implementing application control
- Assessing security vulnerabilities and patching applications
- Configuring Microsoft Office macro settings
- User application hardening
- Restricting administrative privileges
- Patching operating systems
- Multi-factor authentication
- Daily backups
Why are daily backups important?
One of the primary reasons for backing up data daily is to ensure the swift recovery of valuable information in the event of unforeseen circumstances. Data loss can occur due to various reasons, such as hardware failure, software corruption, human error, or malicious cyber-attacks.
In any of these scenarios, having a daily backup can significantly improve the chances of successful recovery, and minimise the potential damage caused by data loss.
Moreover, daily data backups serve as an insurance policy for your digital assets. By consistently backing up your data, you can rest assured that you have a secure and updated copy of your important files and documents. This peace of mind is invaluable, especially for businesses that rely heavily on their digital data for day-to-day operations, decision-making, and long-term growth strategies.
How to backup data
When considering cloud storage, you not only benefit from the convenience of accessing your data from anywhere with an internet connection, but you also have the reassurance of knowing that your information is stored on remote servers, safeguarding it from potential hardware failures. Encryption is often built-in to cloud storage solutions, providing an additional layer of security for your sensitive data. However, it is essential to weigh the costs and potential risks associated with cloud storage, such as data breaches.
On the other hand, external storage devices, like hard drives and USB drives, allow you to physically control your data backups. Encryption software can also be utilised with these devices to protect your data from unauthorised access. Although this method may seem more secure, it is important to remember that physical storage devices can be lost, stolen or damaged, leading to potential data loss.
How to maintain compliance with daily backups
It is crucial to establish multiple data backup methods, including a main process along with a supplementary one. Additionally, several data recovery procedures should be set up, featuring both principal and secondary approaches.
During the initial setup, data recovery methods must be evaluated at least once, and then each time there is a significant change in the IT infrastructure, while regular testing for all partial backup recovery systems should occur at least every three months.
To reduce the likelihood of all versions being affected, backups should be spread across various geographic locations. Data should be stored in backups for a minimum of three months.
Implement the right daily backup solution with expert help
By diligently backing up your data, you not only reduce the risk of losing critical information, but also safeguard your business against the potentially crippling consequences of data loss.
The cyber security team at Itopia specialise in deploying and managing the Essential Eight risk mitigation strategies for businesses of all sizes and industries. Talk to them today and ensure you have a strong security framework defending your business.
