According to the FBI, a favorite new tactic of cybercriminals is introducing ransomware to target systems, and the tactic is on the rise:. These attacks are also becoming more sophisticated. If data loss occurs, here are 5 hacks to improve your data recovery success.
1. Test Frequently
IT teams should periodically test different media with different volumes of data to ensure that everything can be recovered. And not just once or twice a year, but at least every few months, and whenever there’s been a change such as new file applications or storage devices. This way recovery issues can be identified and corrected before they become critical.
2. Document Recovery Plans
Be sure all disaster recovery plans are documented in a readable format and made available to appropriate staff, not just key IT employees who may be ill or unreachable when data loss occurs. Disaster recovery plans are essential parts of the business process and should be useable at the moment of crisis, not hours later.
3. Off-site Backup
Power outages or equipment failure also cause data loss. Implement protection like UPS (uninterrupted power supply) in case of blackouts, external drives for backing up specific computers, and mirrored RAID drives on servers. Most importantly, backups should be made to an off-site source such as cloud storage or a different facility that will not be affected by on-site issues. The same connections used to store the backups can be used to recover them – and the quicker, the better.
4. Data Deletion
Data loss can also involve laptops or mobile devices that are lost or stolen. The growing use of mobile computing makes it harder for network admins to control data flow and access. Employers should look for applications that allow them to remotely delete files. In instances critical to business processes, network engineers should set up RAID 5 recovery allowing recovery to another computer.
5. Personal Data
Sometimes data is lost due to “logical” errors such as misnamed files, accidental deletion, and so on. If these files have not yet been backed up as part of the data recovery plan, or to an external drive, they cannot be restored. However, so long as there’s no physical problem with the drive, this data still exists. It’s not necessary to take drives to a specialist. Organizations should invest in local recovery applications that can restore these files.
Never rely on software or guidelines for protection. Regulation of patient medical records were implemented back in 2009, yet healthcare data is still growing as a preferred target. The best protection against data loss is still comprehensive and timely backups. But even that won’t help much without proven techniques for recovering the data.