Is your backup in order? Six questions to ask!

As an SME you are responsible for a well-run company. You don't want to think about your company coming to a standstill. That's why you make sure you have backups. One in four SMEs falls victim to a cyber attack. By making a good backup you limit data loss and your business continues to run. But what is a good backup and what should you pay attention to? Six questions to ask to make a good backup.

What is a backup?

A backup is a copy of the original data stored on a device. If something happens to the device, you can restore your data using the backup. A copy can be either a file copy or a system copy. A file copy only copies your files. A system image makes a complete copy of your computer's entire hard drive. This allows files, settings and programs to be restored in the event of an emergency.

Why do you need to make a backup?

There are various situations that can occur as a result of which you can no longer access your data. That could be human error, a colleague accidentally deleting files. Or a malfunction in the system, a computer program can crash, but a hard drive can also fail. In such a case, you should be able to restore a system image, which will give you access to the programs again.

A fire can also break out in the office. Computers and the server room can be destroyed this way. If your data is only stored in the office, then you have a problem.

Cyber attacks

You can also become a victim of a cyber attack. Viruses and malware can modify or delete files or even stop the computer or server from working. During a ransomware attack, your files are encrypted. If you don't want to pay a ransom to get your files back, restoring a backup is the only solution to regain access to your files and systems.

Six questions to ask to make a good backup

What is a good backup for you depends on your organization. If you are not making a backup yet, you should do so immediately. But making a backup once is not enough. For a good backup, you need to answer the following six questions.

1. How often do you want to make a backup?
2. What should the backup retention be?
3. What may the recovery time be?
4. How do you save it and where do you keep the backup?
5. Do you regularly check whether the backup was successful?
6. What about security? Is the backup encrypted?
   
   
   

How often do you want to make a backup?

If your organization processes thousands of orders per day, you probably want your backup to be made much more frequently. If you make a backup per hour, you will lose fewer orders in the event of an emergency than if you only make one backup per day. Do you have fixed times, for example noon and midnight? If a cyber attack occurs in the morning, you will lose six hours of data. Is that acceptable for your organization?

Backup retention period: what is your retention?

A backup retention period, called retention, indicates how far back you can go in the history of a backup. Do you want to be able to restore a file from a year ago? Then your retention period must be one year.

You may think that unlimited storage is the solution, but there are costs involved. The more data, the more costs. You also have to take the legislation into account. For example, the GDPR can indicate how long data may be legally retained.

What may the recovery time be?

If business-critical processes come to a standstill due to an incident, it is important to restart the processes as quickly as possible. How long can it take before you can access your data and applications again? The consideration for this recovery time is called Recovery Time Objective (RTO). Do you have to restore everything before you can get back to work? What is the priority? You may want the telephone exchange to work again right away, but it is no problem if the HR application works again a day later.

By determining these priorities in advance, you know how long it will take before you can get back to everything. In addition, if everything does not have to be online again immediately, you can also save costs.

How do you save it and where do you keep the backup?

Is your backup on an external hard drive? Where do you keep that hard drive? If your backup is kept in the office and there is a fire or theft, you no longer have a backup. It is recommended not to depend on one location for your backup. For example, store your backup in multiple locations and in multiple forms. Consider making a copy in the cloud.

Do you regularly check whether the backup was successful?

It seems obvious, but testing backups is often skipped. To ensure that your backup works, you should periodically test your backup. You do this by restoring a backup you made.

What about security? Is the backup encrypted?

Is your backup secured? In the case of a physical backup, for example, store the backup in a safe, encrypt the hard drive and protect it with a password.
Is your backup in the cloud? Make sure that only authorized people have access to your backup.

Think carefully about your backup

A backup is not easy to do. If you want to get the most out of a backup, you must have an answer to the above answers ready and have determined your priorities. Don't know where to start? We are happy to help you.

Do you need advice about backup management? View our backup management service or contact us.