World Backup Day is Coming Again!

World Backup Day is coming again. It reminds us of the fact that what we store on our computers, servers, or Cloud is important and needs to be protected. I have written a few posts in our Tech News about the importance of data protection. When you lose them (no matter if it is because of hardware failure, malicious intent by a disgruntled employee, ransomware, or simple human error) you have to spend a lot of time and resources on data recovery, and, unfortunately, it happens more often than you’d think. But fear not! Times of very expensive backups are long gone. As a micro / small business you no longer have to install terribly expensive solutions and spend ridiculous amount of money for a software to secure your data. Right now, what you spend – per month – is not much more than a couple of more expensive coffees and, if you can afford those, you definitely have no excuse to not to properly backup your data. Times of using external hard drives and USB sticks are long gone also. With ransomware on the rampage, you want to use a proper backup solution.

There are options out there, people! Many options to fit your business and your needs. The best solutions are the ones that someone is monitoring for you and makes sure they do run, and data is not being corrupted and is easily accessible, when you need it. If you think that you don’t need a backup when you are using Cloud drives, think again. These are not being backed up by the providers – they are only spaces to keep your files. If you get ransomwared all the data stored on them is encrypted along with your computer hard drives or any external hard drives (USB sticks etc.) attached to your computer. If someone deletes files from them, after a short while, they are gone. It is your responsibility to back them up. Remember – it is more cost effective to back up than to try and recreate your files from scratch when you lose them, whatever the reason for the loss.

Don’t forget to make sure your websites are being backed up as well. It costs way less to do it than to pay someone to rebuild your website when it is hacked. It happens more often than you think.

When we are talking about protection, of course, we cannot forget about second easy way of protection – antivirus. I have written a few articles about them in recent times, and it is a good idea for you to pay attention.

Since the beginning of pandemic, a need for a proper, professional antivirus (I am using this term loosely again, because the modern solutions are much more than what an antivirus used to be) has increased drastically. The old, especially free solutions are not enough, especially for a business. They either are too heavy on resources, slowing down your system to a crawl during a scan, or they may not be updated often enough to follow with newest threats, especially when you don’t run your updates (how often do you ignore notifications from your antivirus, when you are in the middle of work?!) That is why, as a business you want to purchase a managed antivirus, that is babysat by someone, who is making sure all the updates are installed and all the scans are performed. A good provider, for a reasonable fee will be monitoring threats for you in real time and advise you as soon as possible about any issues that pop up.

And the third thing, no matter how small your business is, is your password management. I cannot stress enough how important it is to not to recycle your passwords. Never use simple ones and, if you want to check what not to use, for sure, there is a list of ones that are so insecure that it takes less than a second to breach. The most convenient way to manage the issue is to use a password manager that will create, fill and save complicated passwords for you. There are many options out there as well. You can easily find something that will fit your needs.

If you still find this whole thing overwhelming with all the choices out there and/or don’t have time to do your research don’t give up and shelve the issue for a better, more convenient time. The sooner you are protected properly, the sooner you can concentrate on running your own business. There are IT companies out there that specialize in helping you – a micro/small business (that includes sole intrapreneurs as well, so don’t you be using that as an excuse, because you deserve a proper protection just as much as a larger business does!). Those companies will find a custom solution for you and help you implement it. Give them a call and you will have a piece of mind and business that is more secured because you have taken steps to protect it.

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