There have been some recent unfortunate events that have resulted in some serious consequences as a direct outcome of not having proper backups in place. Not having backups can bring your business to a standstill. This can result in severe financial losses and, in worst case scenarios even closure of business.
Strong and disciplined backup procedures become even more important when you consider very real threats such as the ransomware virus attacks that are so prevalent at present.
Nobody can provide you with a guarantee against fire, water, theft, lightning, sabotage, or virus attack. Servers are man-made and are therefore fallible. Hard drives crash after a period of time. Your business is a target for ransomware. Protect yourself as far as possible with warranties, insurance policies, regular system checks but most of all ENSURE THAT YOU HAVE PROPER BACKUPS IN PLACE AT ALL TIMES.
This means starting out with having a proper backup policy and procedure in place that includes an off-site back up. It is of no use if your building burns down along with the backup.
The next step is to delegate responsibility to a person or entity to fulfil your backup policy and procedure. There must be absolutely no confusion or ambiguity here. All too often we have found examples where people thought someone else was responsible for the backup only to find out that nobody was accountable. Take the trouble to Document your backup policy.
Do you have a proper documented backup procedure / policy in place?
If your answer to the above is “no” then you are at a far greater risk than those who do and it is important that you implement this without delay. There are various ways of doing the backups and ensuring that they are valid but if this is not documented and distributed to the relevant responsible people and entities then this creates unnecessary risk.
When compiling your policy you must answer 5 questions relating to the backup and restore process:
- Who – Is responsible and who has access to the backups and how can they be contacted?
- What – kind of backups are performed?
- When – how often must backups take place?
- Where – are your backups located?
- How – type of hardware/software/methodology is recommended for backups?
If you do not know the answers to any of these questions or even if you are doubtful about any one of them then you are definitely at risk and you need to act quickly.
You should be consulting with your IT provider to put this in place.
Contributed by:
AJS Legal Software
