Essential Eight: Regular Backups

Essential 8 #8: Regular Backups

The Ultimate Protection for Your Data

It's Friday, and a long weekend beckons in Australia – but before I head off to enjoy some well-deserved downtime, let's talk about the final piece of the Essential Eight puzzle: Regular Backups. We've covered a lot of ground on our cybersecurity journey, from Application Control (the bouncer at the door) to Multi-Factor Authentication (the vigilant security guard). Now, we've reached the last line of defense, the safety net that can save you from digital disaster: Regular Backups.

What are Regular Backups, and Why are They Important?

Think of regular backups as keeping a secure safe inside your digital house. You're making copies of your most important digital possessions – your financial records, important documents, family photos – and locking them away in this safe. If anything happens to the originals – a cyberattack, a hardware failure, or even accidental deletion – you have the copies in your secure safe to fall back on.

Regular backups are essential because they provide a way to recover your data if it's lost, stolen, or corrupted. Without backups, you risk losing everything. It is worth noting that whilst backups are a great safety net, they do not prevent these things from happening.

What Can Cause Data Loss?

Many things can lead to data loss, including:

• Ransomware attacks: Cybercriminals encrypt your files and demand payment for their release.

• Hardware failures: Hard drives crash, computers break down, and mobile devices can be lost or damaged.

• Accidental deletion or overwriting of files: It happens to the best of us.

• Natural disasters: Floods, fires, earthquakes, and other disasters can destroy your data.

• Theft: Laptops, computers, and hard drives can be stolen.

What Should Be Backed Up?

Not all data is created equal. You need to prioritise what gets backed up:

• Critical business data: This includes financial records, customer databases, project files, and anything else that's essential to your operations.

• Important documents: Contracts, legal documents, tax records, and other irreplaceable files.

• System configurations and settings: This allows you to quickly restore your systems to their previous state if necessary.

Backup Methods:

There are several ways to back up your data:

• Cloud backups: Services like Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud, and many others offer online storage for your files. This is a convenient and often affordable option. Many cloud backup providers also offer version history, allowing you to roll back to previous versions of files, which can help to mitigate the impact of ransomware attacks.

• External hard drives: You can copy your files to an external hard drive and store them locally. This gives you direct control over your backups.

• Network-attached storage (NAS): A NAS device is a centralized storage system on your local network that allows multiple users and devices to access and back up data.

• Hybrid backups: Many organisations use a combination of cloud and local backups for added redundancy.

The "3-2-1 Backup Rule":

This is a widely recommended guideline for ensuring your data is adequately protected:

• 3 copies of your data: This means you should have the original data plus at least two backups.

• 2 different storage media: Don't store all your backups on the same type of media. For example, have one backup on an external hard drive and another in the cloud.

• 1 offsite copy: Keep at least one backup copy in a separate physical location, such as in the cloud or a secure offsite storage facility.

How Often Should You Back Up?

The frequency of your backups depends on how often your data changes and how much data you can afford to lose.

• Daily: For critical data that changes frequently.

• Weekly: For less critical data or data that changes less often.

• Monthly: A full system backup can be performed monthly.

Automating the backup process is crucial. Most backup solutions allow you to schedule automatic backups, so you don't have to remember to do it manually.

Testing Your Backups:

It's not enough to create backups — you need to make sure they actually work! Regularly test your backups by restoring a few files or folders to ensure the process works as expected and that the backups are not corrupt.

How Canzuki Can Help:

Developing and implementing a robust backup strategy can be complex. Canzuki can help you:

• Develop a tailored backup strategy: We'll assess your needs and create a plan that's right for your organisation.

• Select and implement appropriate backup solutions: We'll help you choose the right mix of cloud, local, and hybrid backups.

• Automate backup processes: We'll make sure your backups run automatically and reliably.

• Monitor backup success and address any issues: We'll keep an eye on your backups and alert you to any problems.

• Perform regular test restores: We'll verify that your backups are working correctly and that you can recover your data in case of an emergency.

• Develop a disaster recovery plan: We will help you create a plan outlining the steps to take to recover your data and systems in case of a major incident.

Don't wait until disaster strikes. Implement a regular backup strategy today. Contact Canzuki to learn more about how we can help you protect your valuable data.

Ready to create your safety net? Call us at +61 2 7227 9388 or email hello@canzuki.com.

Regular backups are your last line of defence against data loss. They're like a safety deposit box for your digital assets, ensuring you can recover quickly from any disaster. Don't risk losing everything – implement a robust backup strategy today.

And with that, we've reached the end of our Essential Eight journey! I hope you've found this series informative and helpful. Remember, cybersecurity is an ongoing process, but by implementing these eight essential steps, you're well on your way to a more secure digital future. Canzuki can be your trusted partner to ensure your E8 implementation makes sense. 😊

Stay vigilant, stay secure, and don't forget to back up your data!