When most people consider the need to back up their critical business data they commonly consider it as insurance policy against equipment failure or natural disaster to ensure they can minimize the impact on these events have on their business operations. It’s obviously human nature to think about the worst-case scenarios as those are the events that can have the greatest impact on our livelihood, and could conceivably put a company out of business.

While the more significant events should absolutely be considered when developing a formal business continuity and disaster recovery plan, the reality is that these doomsday scenarios are not likely to happen. What is more likely to happen is that an employee will accidentally delete important files, a disgruntled employee will deliberately delete critical business data in an effort to disrupt your business, or an employee will click on a link within an email or on a website that infects their computer with malware. The most common scenario is the latter, in which an employee’s computer gets infected with malware (typically ransomware), which quickly renders their computer and critical files useless.Ransomware attacks are typically carried out by using a trojan that is disguised as a legitimate file that the user is tricked into downloading or opening when it arrives as an email attachment. They can also be carried out by including a link to a malicious website within an email. Ransomware encrypts the victim’s files, making them inaccessible, and demands a ransom payment to decrypt them.

Ransomware attacks have increased over 200% in the past 12 months, with over 180 million attacks happening per year, and collectively costing the victims hundreds of millions of dollars trying to recover from these attacks.While backing up your critical data is certainly an integral part of any good business continuity and disaster recovery plan, it is just as important to implement a solid data backup plan to recover from malicious activity such as ransomware.

While a high percentage of computer viruses and malware can be eradicated by an experienced IT professional, there are a portion of these threats that have no easy fix, and paying the ransom is NOT the answer. The only way to eradicate some of these invasive threats is to reformat the computer, and start from scratch. That means all of the data on the impacted device needs to be deleted, and device brought back to the factory default settings. In these instances it becomes essential that you have a recent copy of your files readily available so you can quickly and efficiently get back to business, and hopefully pick up where you left off. There are a number of ways to efficiently back-up your critical data, with some rudimentary solutions being part of your existing software.

Every company should take the time to review their data to determine its significance to the business, along with understanding where the data is being stored, and if/how it is being backed up. GSC IT Solutions has an experienced staff of professionals and leverages leading industry providers in the data backup and disaster recovery segment. We can implement and deploy a variety of on-site and cloud-based solutions to ensure all of your critical business data is always accessible, and can quickly be recovered to allow your business to quickly return to operation.

For a free consultation, please contact us at sales@gscitsolutions.com or call the office at 603-485-7100.