In our technology driven business world, data is growing exponentially for companies. Security breaches of sensitive data has rocked our world for the past few years. It seems as if there are no institutions, whether large or small, public or private, that are immune to the problem of data loss and data breaches. The escalation of hackings and cyber crimes on means that technology officers and business leaders need to be aware of the reasons behind data loss. Here is a quick recap from studies over the last few years showing the major causes of data loss.
- Human Error – Employees have direct access to your most sensitive data regularly. The top risk of losing data is deleting files or parts of texts without having any backups available – usually by employees. Did you also know how common it is for employees to spill coffee or drinks into a laptop? Liquids cause short circuit of important electronic components and they are really hard to recover afterwards. Since losing data is so common, some employees don’t even see it as a huge problem anymore. Having the right back up procedures can most definitely help so that if data is accidentally deleted it can be easily accessed.
- Viruses and Malware – Staying on top of the latest malware and viruses that are out there in the cyber world can be daunting. Keep your software current to help stay up to date with the latest viruses out there. In addition, making regular backups of your data and having it available after severe virus damages may have really high value.
- Old Hardware – Hard drives and hardware can age and be neglected. There are so many moving parts inside of hard drives that it is no wonder they break down so easily. Hard drives can die a natural death after 5-6 years of use. Regular backups really help in case of hardware troubles. Hard disk failures do not mean that data is lost forever if you have the opportunity to take the latest version of your data from safe storage and continue using it after any kind of hardware failures.
- Power Failures or Natural Disasters – Mother Nature has a way of letting us know that we, as humans, are powerless. Having automatic backups of your work enables you to recover from any accidents caused by power failures or natural disasters like floods, hurricanes, fire or other unthinkable events.
- Theft – Electronic devices whether they are smartphones, tablets or laptops can be easily stolen. It adds insult to injury if you lose your device as well as your data! The data may actually be more valuable to your business than the actual device. Recovering data may be a lot easier if you save to the cloud or have specific backup procedures so that all that data doesn’t walk away with the thief.
Has your company created a backup plan? Talk to M&H Consultants to find out the best way your business can protect itself from data loss.
Categorised in: back up, data management, disaster recovery