How You Can Secure Your Data Backup

Every organization should work on creating its own data backup policies. These policies will help you in handling your backups. This is more important now due to the rise of remote work. The world was hit by the COVID-19 outbreak. Due to this pandemic, the number of remote workers is rising. However, there are many challenges that come with a dispersed workforce. It is difficult to maintain the backup of your systems. They should know about the best practice that will help them in handling backups. In this article, we are going to share some best practices that will help you in securing your data backup.

1. Follow the famous 3-2-1 backup rule

The 3-2-1 backup rule states that you should have at least three copies of important data. You should have one original copy and two backup copies of your important data. These backups should be stored in different locations and formats. This will help you in minimizing the data loss.

Most employees are working remotely now. Thus, you should consider combining local USB or NAS backup with a remote cloud backup. AWS and Google are offering cloud backup services to their clients. If you are going for the cloud option, then you should ensure that you are choosing immutable backup. This will protect your data from alterations and deletions.

You should store one backup in local storage and another backup in immutable cloud storage. In case of a ransomware attack, you can recover your files from offsite immutable backup. This will ensure that you don’t need to worry about paying the ransom. You can restore your files from your immutable cloud storage.

2. Back up all the information and files that you need

You should ensure that you are backing up the right files and data. Every file should have the correct version and correct format. Your employees should also follow the best backup practices. This will ensure that they are backing up the right files.

You should also have backup procedures and policies. Many companies forget about the data that they are generating via SaaS platforms. You should back up the data that you are generating from your SaaS tools. Many IT admins think that the SaaS tools are running on the cloud. However, you should still need to back up this data.

Most SaaS platforms won’t automatically backup your data. For example, Microsoft has already said that they are not doing automatic backups. Salesforce is also not providing automatic data protection. You can use enterprise backup providers like NetBackup and Veeam for backing up your SaaS data. However, you need to educate your remote employees about these tools. This will ensure that they can use these tools for backing up their data.

3. Enable Data Encryption

It is important to encrypt the data that you are storing. You need to mention this point in your data backup policies. Encryption is actually an optional feature in many enterprises. Thus, their employees will never activate this feature. Your employees should know how to enable encryption in their backup software. They should know about storing passphrases for enabling encryption. This will protect your data from attackers. Attackers can’t access your data until they have the decryption keys. Thus, encryption will help you in protecting your data in case of a data breach. Most backup tools offer this feature. However, you should ensure that your employees are using this feature.

4. Confirm that your backups are working

This step might seem very obvious to you. However, most companies forget about this step. They will realize that their backups are not working during a disaster. This step is very important if your workforce is working remotely. Your employees might not realize that they need to run their laptops for completing the backup process. They might close their laptops during the backup process.

However, there is a very simple solution to solve this problem. All you need to do is communicate clearly and regularly with your employees. Make sure that they are taking the right steps for completing backups. You should do regular and short communications with your employee. This is more beneficial when compared with the occasional longer-form updates. You can send a weekly video to your employees. This will ensure that your employees know about the importance of tacking backup. Your CISO can send an email to your employees. They should ensure that your employees are taking data backup seriously.

5. Test backup restores

Very few companies will actually test their backup restores. Most companies are only worried about passing the audit. They forget about the data backups after passing the annual audit.

Sometimes your retention times will be set incorrectly. Maybe your backup data is not correct or valid. Sometimes hackers can directly target your backup files. They will send ransomware to your backups. These are some common things that can go wrong. The only method to avoid these situations is testing.

You should test your backup methods every 4 months. Try to restore your systems first. After that, return the system to your employees and ask them if the files are accurate. However, most people are working from their homes now. Thus, you should ask your employees to test self-service restores. They should try to restore individual Powerpoint or Excel files. This will ensure that your employees know about how to restore their files. Also, they should ensure that the restored data is accurate and complete. In case of a data breach, your employees can restore data from cloud storage.

Conclusion

It is very important to create data backup procedures and policies. These policies and procedures will help you in handling your data backups. This will ensure that your backup files are protected from attackers. Most workers are working remotely now. Make sure that your employees are regularly backing up their data. You can also work with experienced MSPs like Bleuwire. They will help you in creating data backup policies and procedures. If you need more tips regarding securing your data backup, then you can contact Bleuwire.

Contact us today to learn about Bleuwire™  services and solutions in how we can help your business.