Are you testing the company's backup?
One morning, you start up your work computer and notice that something is not quite right - all the files are encrypted, and you are greeted with a message asking you to pay a ransom. You have most likely been hit by ransomware!
Your first thought might be that you are glad you have made a backup. But what if it is completely worthless? The entire company database is unusable and cannot be restored. What would you do if you lost all the work from the past year? You would probably have a panic attack!
Making regular backups is a given for many, especially among businesses that work with mission-critical data. Unfortunately, there is a very important part that many forget, called the Restore test - that is, ensuring that your backup actually works. How often do you test your company's backup?
The thought of downtime - a stress in itself
It's no wonder that the thought of experiencing downtime can create stress and a feeling of discomfort. If you work with mission-critical data or a service that needs to function for the business to operate, experiencing downtime can be extremely costly. The nagging thought can be eliminated by ensuring that regular backup tests are actively performed to confirm that they work.
The importance of preventing useless backups
Backups themselves may not be the most exciting thing to think about, but it is crucial that you do it. The day something goes wrong, you will be glad that you made that backup. However, the feeling of realizing that your backup doesn't work is something you want to avoid both at work and in your personal life.
As with many other things, it is necessary to backup your data regularly. This is because saved data can become old as well as damaged.
Regular backups are good, but unfortunately, many people store their backup data in the same location as the original data and trust that it works, without testing whether the backup can be restored or how long time it takes.
Take control of the company's backup and ensure that it works. It can have devastating consequences if it turns out that the backup, which contains the company's most business-critical data, cannot be restored.
It is also important to keep track of how long it takes to restore your backup. The last thing you want is for there to be unnecessarily long downtime because it takes a long time to restore the backup. It is therefore very important to test that the backup itself works and to keep track of how long it actually takes to restore your data.
What worries you the most? - data corruption or hackers?
What makes headlines on the internet is when a company's data is locked by cybercriminals in a Ransomware attack, or when they have managed to install some Malware. There may be several reasons why the backup cannot be restored, and here you can read a little more about data corruption, which occurs far more often than many people think.
Data corruption - what and why?
Data corruption is when data is destroyed or distorted so that it cannot be used or read correctly. This can happen if something goes wrong with the data while it is being saved, sent, or processed. For example, a power outage, lightning strike, virus attack, or human error can cause data corruption. Data corruption can be very damaging to you and your organization because it can mean losing important information, your systems crashing, getting incorrect results, and losing trust in your data. Therefore, it is important that you have a backup of your data and that you use different methods to check that your data is correct and secure.
Outsource the work to a partner.
Take care of the fear that your data may be corrupt, locked, or encrypted without your knowledge. Get an experienced partner so that you can focus on other things that are more important for your business.
Cegal takes care of customers' data in several different ways, such as Managed Services, 24/7 monitoring, Disaster Recovery, and ensuring compliance with certifications such as ISO and GDPR
Restore Test as a Service
One practice we handle is Restore Test as a Service, from fully automated to a fixed quarterly routine. A task that we typically find very difficult for our customers to perform themselves, we systematize and ensure is continuously handled with an optimized routine.
Cegal supports customers with Oracle, MSSQL, Microsoft SQL Database, MySQL, and PostgreSQL.
