Businesses are targeted daily by cybercriminals. Cybercriminals know that if they can get access to a business’s data then they can earn money from it either by stealing it, selling it to a competitor, or restricting the business access to this data.
The last method is called ransomware and it usually revolves around a business being locked out of their computer systems and having to pay cybercriminals to get access to their machines back. This type of attack is common and costs businesses thousands each year.
A business that is subject to a cyberattack often goes out of business within months too, so protecting your data is something that every business should be doing.
Today we will be looking at some of the best ways in which a business can protect its data and that’s from making backups. For those who don’t know, a backup is a copy of your original data.
Copying your data on a daily or weekly basis can take a lot of time and resources so we have chosen some of the quickest and most affordable ways of doing so.
Burning your media to a disk
If you have a PC you more than likely have the means to backup your data. Most modern PCs will have a CD burner that will allow you to drag and drop your files onto a disk and then burn them to it.
The best part about burning to a disk too is that you aren’t limited by the data you can burn to a disk. You can burn text files, audio, movies and some companies such as Digital Converters can even burn VHS movies to a disk.
Burning data to a disk is cheap and allows you to make multiple copies of your most important media very quickly. However, if you have large data, burning to a disk may not be the best solution as you are limited by the size of the disk. Some disks can hold 700MB of data while larger disks can hold 4GB of data. For some, this disk size may be ok, but for most, it may be limiting. If you do need to store larger files keep on reading.
Using USB Sticks to backup your data
USB sticks are useful for storing larger files while still being affordable. USB sticks or thumb drives as some may call them can be purchased from most computer shops and online stores and can store hundreds of gigabytes of data.
USB sticks are useful devices for backing up your data but they can easily be lost due to their small size. If you have a secure location where you can store these small drives then do so but be sure to keep them safe. For some people, USB drives are too small and they worry about losing them if this sounds like you then the next storage method will be for you.
External hard drives to backup your data
External hard drives are more expensive than thumb drives but they also allow you more flexibility when it comes to the sizes of the files that you can store on the disk.
External hard drives can once again come in a variety of sizes and everything from a few gigabytes to terabytes is common. The larger the disk the more you will have to pay for it so keep that in mind.
One disadvantage of a large external hard drive is that business owners often get lazy and keep everything they need on the device, but doing so makes them vulnerable as if that device becomes lost or damaged they no longer have a backup.
If you do go down the external hard drive route we would recommend getting at least two so you have a backup of a backup. This may seem like overkill and will take up more time but if you ever need it you will be thankful that you took the steps to make sure your data is protected. If you don’t want to have two hard drives keep on reading because at the end of the article we will have some suggestions on the best practices for backing up your business data.
Using cloud storage to backup your data
Using cloud storage to backup your data is an excellent choice for most business owners as they don’t have to keep physical copies of their data and making backups can be done much more efficiently.
There are many cloud providers that you can choose from as a business owner, but one of the easiest to use in our opinion is Dropbox. Dropbox is as simple as dragging and dropping your files into and then you can navigate to them at any time. Companies such as Dropbox also make regular backups too so if your server becomes damaged or you delete your files by accident they will be able to restore those files for you.
Cloud storage is very easy to set up, it’s cheaper than buying physical devices and it’s protected via online security measures that physical devices do not have. If you were only to pick one method of backing up your business data we would highly recommend going down the cloud computing route.
Dropbox and Google Drive all offer terabytes of business storage data for less than $60 a year so you have no excuse when it comes to protecting your data from cybercriminals.
Data backup best practices
Whichever method of backing up your data you choose you will need to have a process in place in case the worst were ever to happen. Backing up your data will seem like a chore at times and often business owners get lazy and don’t keep to a schedule. Unfortunately for most, this is when disaster strikes.
Our tip is to backup your data as often as possible without it taking up too much of your time. You should also back up onto multiple sources. Our tip would be to use a digital backup such as cloud computing along with a physical backup such as an external password-protected hard drive.
