Every organization that produces, handles, or stores data — including your business in Houston — should create a backup and recovery plan (BDR). Here are three reasons why.
1. Losing data or access to data can have serious implications
Some data are critical to a business's operations. These data can include customer details, employee information, financial records, proprietary information, or other types of business-critical information. Losing access to these data can negatively impact employee productivity, or worse, completely halt your operations. You could incur massive financial losses; downtime costs small businesses $425 per minute on average, while large companies lose around $9,000 per minute. Your company could also suffer a bad reputation or even permanently lose your customers to your competitors.
If you lose certain types of data for good, your company could be subject to litigation or large fines. This is because many privacy and security regulations require keeping certain records for a minimum time period. For example, HIPAA requires healthcare providers and other covered entities to keep all records of policies, procedures, or actions for at least six years of their creation date.
A good BDR plan can help you easily retrieve any data you’ve lost and resume operations immediately.
Read also: 5 Common pitfalls of business continuity plans
2. There are many ways to lose data
Unintentional data loss may occur for the following reasons:
- Accidental data deletion
- Hardware and software malfunction
- Power failure
- Natural disaster (e.g., fire, hurricane, earthquake, flood)
- Losing a device that contains company data
In 2014, for instance, the State Department lost access to its global database for issuing travel documents after a series of system glitches. This resulted in a massive backlog in the processing of passport and visa applications.
Data loss can also be instigated through:
- Hacking
- Malware
- Theft of gadget containing company data
- Deliberate data deletion or sabotage
For example, in 2016, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center (HPMC) suffered a ransomware attack that blocked the hospital’s access to its network, emails, and patient data for a week. Some patients had to be redirected to other hospitals, and employees had to use telephones and fax machines to perform some of their tasks. HPMC eventually paid a ransom of 40 Bitcoins to regain access to its systems.
Alarmingly, the 2022 MSP Threat Report found that two out of three midsize businesses fell victim to a ransomware attack in the last 18 months. The size, severity, and cost of these such attacks are also increasing year after year. Even so, you can prevent significant data loss and minimize the impact of ransomware attacks and other causes of data loss by implementing a comprehensive BDR plan.
3. Preventive measures can fail
You can take proactive measures to reduce the risk of data loss. For example, you can install uninterruptible power supply devices to avoid losing company data during unscheduled power outages. You can also deploy multiple IT solutions to improve your company’s cybersecurity against malware and other cyberthreats.
However, there's always a risk of cyberthreats slipping through, no matter how robust your cyber defenses may be. Sophisticated phishing emails, for one, can fool advanced email filters because they are crafted like legitimate emails and often contain no malware.
Moreover, data loss may sometimes be caused by natural disasters. Although you can't prevent these adverse events, having a BDR plan ensures that they won't derail your operations.
Don’t let any disaster get in the way of your business. Let the IT experts of Safebit help create an effective BDR plan for your company. Schedule a FREE consultation with us today.
