For many businesses, digital information represents core assets that they rely on for keeping track of users, providing services, and fixing problems. However, these assets can be easily compromised by simple user error or targeted malicious activities.

Backups offer IT directors and cybersecurity professionals a means to deal with data loss before it’s too late.

According to a University of Maryland study, hackers attack more than once every minute. This frequency leaves unprotected systems vulnerable to potential theft, loss, or corruption of valuable digital assets.

The Importance of Data Backup Best Practices

With data backups, organizations have access to timely copies of their digital assets in case something goes wrong. By properly maintaining your backup and recovery solutions, you’ll be able to recover from disaster quickly and with less overhead.

Cyberattacks pose a huge risk to businesses that rely on their data for essential tasks. Common types of attacks include:

  • Ransomware
  • Phishing and malware
  • DDoS
  • Man-in-the-middle
  • Zero-day exploit

Business leaders should consider how their backups are deployed so they can protect themselves and their organizations from data loss.

Common Recovery Solutions

Whether onsite, offsite, or in the cloud, regular backups are an important part of any data management policy. By considering the available options, decision-makers can quickly get operations back on track when data loss occurs.

Full, incremental, and differential backups give users refined options to meet their specific demands.

Full

Businesses that deal with a lot of data might want to take a one-size-fits-all approach to data backups. With full backups, the entire catalog of data is copied to the desired location. While it may be the easiest solution, it’s not very efficient.

Incremental

For a more nuanced approach, some businesses use incremental backups. Incremental backups keep track of files and only commit to the repository when there has been an insertion or deletion. This approach makes it easy to ensure any files that have recently changed are protected from being compromised.

Differential

Differential backups take a hybrid approach and deliver timed full backups with incremental backups in-between. This setup allows businesses to effectively track and manage data without wasting resources.

10 Essential Steps for Data Backup Best Practices

With data backups, business leaders have peace of mind knowing that their essential assets are safe. However, data backup best practices rely on IT directors and cybersecurity professionals who know how to maintain their data ecosystems.

Don’t let data loss keep your business from operating effectively. Quickly recover when things go wrong with these 10 essential steps for reinforcing data backup best practices.

1. Control User Access

Secure data practices require strict protocols for determining who can create, maintain, and change backup schedules. By defining permissions and creating secure password management practices, businesses can eliminate many of the common errors associated with data loss.

This approach allows IT directors and cybersecurity professionals to manage data backups without limiting their workforce’s ability to leverage data to create value.

When data is compromised, it’s important to know who has access to data and when. This knowledge ensures responsible data use and accountability when things go wrong. By taking the necessary steps to ensure unauthorized users can’t access important data, businesses can ensure the integrity of their backups.

2. Be Critical

It’s important for decision-makers to carefully consider their options before deciding which information they want to keep track of. Businesses that only do full backups without considering incremental or differential solutions are unnecessarily increasing the costs and waste associated with their backup solutions.

What data is backed up is just as important as how it’s backed up. Decision-makers should keep track of what data needs to be backed up. File types, sizes, and creation dates can all be taken into account to build more efficient recovery solutions. This analysis leads to a more manageable approach.

3. Prepare for Natural Disasters

Businesses that store all of their important data in a single location are setting themselves up for failure. When natural disasters strike, any or all of an organization’s digital assets can be put at risk. Without the right solutions in place, it’s only a matter of time before essential data is compromised.

Forward-thinking business leaders should determine the most practical solutions for their disaster recovery plan. A 3-2-1 backup methodology is a common solution for businesses concerned about their data. Geo-location is also important. Regional data centers give businesses a way to ensure their data is safe from potential loss.

4. Be Timely

Data loss can occur at any time. This possibility can leave a workforce unable to offer vital services when it’s most important. Well-timed backups are an essential part of any IT service plan.

When and how often backups are done will have a huge impact on disaster recovery. Continuous backups give IT directors and cybersecurity professionals the flexibility to recover at multiple points in time, allowing them to mitigate data loss without concern of lost work.

5. Plan Ahead

When organizations lose track of their intended purposes, they see increased expenditures and reduced efficiencies. This rudderlessness leaves them unable to properly secure their valuable assets when they’re put at risk.

IT directors and cybersecurity professionals should consider why they’re backing up specific data. Considering how data will be used will allow decision-makers to target essential information first. With a long-term vision for their backup solutions, organizations can prioritize the methods that work best for their stated goals.

6. Ensure Integrity

Even when data is backed up consistently, decision-makers can never be certain the information hasn’t been compromised at some point. If backups fail and nobody notices, recovery could be impossible.

IT directors and cybersecurity professionals who want to ensure their backups are being done correctly should take the necessary steps to mitigate potential errors.

Continuous testing of backups, encryption and other measures to make sure they aren’t corrupted or misaligned with stated goals can ensure important digital assets remain intact through multiple recoveries.

7. Remove Unnecessary Obstacles

Data backups have a lot of moving parts. Making processes unnecessarily complicated only increases the possibility of simple mistakes being made. When doing backups, redundancy is essential for reinforcing good practices and making it easy for users to maintain consistent data backup best practices.

For better data backups, decision-makers should make sure to remove unnecessary obstacles that make it difficult for individuals to manage and protect their digital assets. With the right protocols in place, businesses can effectively mitigate the potential consequences of data loss without putting individual users at risk.

8. Consider Costs

As more data backups are needed, the amount of equipment, energy, and time needed to successfully deploy solutions also increases. This acceleration can lead to out-of-control costs and resource limitations that make it harder to do good backups.

How much money an organization has to maintain its IT ecosystem and data is an important factor in how successful its recovery solutions will be. IT directors and cybersecurity professionals should consider how much they’re willing to spend before beginning the recovery process, so they don’t go over budget.

9. Maintain Your Ecosystem

Within any network, the health of the architecture has a huge influence on data integrity. Malicious actors are constantly trying to gain access to systems and use data for their own purposes. This drive makes it especially important for organizations to protect their backups.

A healthy data ecosystem requires constant scanning for malware and other viruses to ensure malicious code isn’t inserted into backups. By taking the time to properly secure their entire network stack, IT directors and cybersecurity professionals can reinforce their data management practices.

10. Collaboration is Key

Businesses that invest in their own IT solutions might find their solutions growing out of their control. This growth makes it more difficult to focus on core services, and increases cost overhead. With the right solutions in place, businesses can create powerful backup solutions without the need for in-house tools.

Collaboration is essential for finding success in the world of IT. Businesses that can investigate and use the proper tools will have an advantage over their competitors when seeing rapid growth.

By finding a partner that can help ease the pain of their backup and recovery needs, business leaders can ensure they’re able to stay competitive no matter their size.

Protect Your Backup Solutions with Touchstone Security

Are you looking for the best backup and recovery solutions for your data? Don’t waste time and money with outdated tools or technology.

Protect your digital assets with Touchstone Security’s modern cybersecurity solutions. Our advanced program was designed to integrate directly with existing tools so you can get straight to work backing up your essential data.

At Touchstone Security, we understand the importance of data backups. Our core products and services ensure your business has access to agile security and IT management, cloud tools and software, and the support to take full advantage of your data backups.

We simplify the IT environment so you can reliably scale your operations without concern for cost overruns. Find out how our experience in IT and cybersecurity can benefit your business. Speak with Touchstone Security about your cloud security program today.