Businesses are increasingly relying on digital processes to safeguard data through backup and recovery strategies. Multiple threats, including cyber-attacks, equipment failures and environmental disasters, can lead to data loss. Without adequate backup measures and actionable recovery plans, organizations risk losing vital data, the trust of their stakeholders and potentially incurring significant operational disruptions.
With this in mind, it’s essential that your business, regardless of its size or industry, adopts comprehensive and proactive measures to protect its data assets. This ensures the continuity of operations and upholds data integrity and security. In this blog, we will cover different ways businesses like yours can backup critical data and prevent costly breaches.
Understanding Data Backup
Data backup is the systematic process of copying data to preserve and restore information in the case that primary data fails or is stolen. It’s the foundation of any comprehensive data management plan. Backup strategies vary widely to balance the needs of data availability, storage efficiency and resource allocation. There are three main types of backup techniques that use different approaches to safeguard your information. They are:
- Full backups involve a complete copy of all selected data assets. While they are the most thorough, they also demand significant storage capacity and time investment.
- Incremental backups present a more storage- and time-efficient approach, as they only copy data that has changed since the previous backup. This method reduces the workload but requires a cumulative restoration process.
- Differential backups strike a balance by capturing altered data since the most recent full backup. This optimizes the trade-off between the thoroughness of full backups and the efficiency of incremental ones.
Implementing Best Practices for Data Backup
The best data backup solution involves tailoring a strategy that fits your business’s needs, growth potential and security demands. An effective backup strategy will outline how your organization can recover from data-related attacks. These are some of the main components, based on practices to ensure data is backed up, recovery objectives and risk tolerance.
Identifying Data and Backup Frequency
The first step is to classify data based on its importance to business operations and legal compliance requirements.
1. Public Data
Definition: Information that can be freely shared with the public without any risk of harm to the business or individuals.
- Business operations relevance: Low
- Legal compliance: Minimal to none
- Examples: Marketing materials, product brochures, general contact information.
2. Internal Data
Definition: Information that is not classified as confidential but is intended for use within the organization.
- Business operations relevance: Moderate
- Legal compliance: Low, but may include some operational best practices for internal use.
- Examples: Internal newsletters, employee directories and training materials.
3. Confidential/Proprietary Data
Definition: Information that, if disclosed, could cause harm to the business or provide a competitive edge if obtained by competitors.
- Business operations relevance: High
- Legal compliance: Moderate, may be governed by non-disclosure agreements and proprietary information protections.
- Examples: Financial reports, strategic plans and proprietary technology documentation.
4. Personal Identifiable Information (PII)
Definition: Any data that could potentially identify a specific individual.
- Business operations relevance: Varies, but often high due to the need for customer data in providing personalized services.
- Legal compliance: High, governed by laws such as GDPR in Europe, CCPA in California and others globally.
- Examples: Names, addresses, social security numbers, credit card numbers.
5. Protected Health Information (PHI)
Definition: Any information about health status, provision of health care, or payment for health care that is created or collected by a Covered Entity and can be linked to a specific individual.
- Business operations relevance: High for healthcare providers and entities dealing with healthcare data.
- Legal compliance: Very high, governed by HIPAA in the United States and similar regulations in other jurisdictions.
- Examples: Medical records, health insurance information, patient history.
6. Sensitive Personal Information
Definition: A subset of personal information that, if disclosed, could cause major harm or embarrassment to an individual.
- Business operations relevance: High due to legal and reputation risks.
- Legal compliance: Very high, often subject to stringent data protection regulations.
- Examples: Biometric data, genetic data, information on sexual orientation, religious beliefs.
It’s also important to decide how often to back up your data. Highly dynamic datasets like transaction records need more frequent backups, sometimes several times a day. On the other hand, more static information might only need weekly or monthly backups. When making this decision, consider the impact of data loss on your operations and the practical aspects of backup storage and management costs.
Automating Backup Schedules
Consistency is key in data backup—manually managing this process is resource-intensive and prone to human error. Automation eliminates these risks by ensuring that backups occur at regular, predefined intervals without the need for manual initiation. This guarantees that the latest data is always backed up according to the established schedule and allows IT staff to focus on other tasks, optimizing operational efficiency.
Strategic Storage of Backups
Carefully consider where your backups will be stored. Using a combination of on-site and off-site (or cloud-based) storage solutions can enhance data recovery capabilities under various scenarios:
- On-Site Storage: Keeping a copy of the data on-premises allows for rapid restoration, minimizing downtime in scenarios where physical infrastructure remains accessible and unaffected by the cause of data loss. However, it lacks protection against site-wide disasters.
- Off-Site and Cloud-Based Storage: Storing backup copies off-site or in the cloud ensures that data can be recovered even in the event of physical damage to the primary business location, such as fires, floods or other disasters. Cloud storage provides scalable, flexible and often cost-effective solutions for securely storing large volumes of data.
Developing a Data Recovery Plan
An actionable data recovery plan can safeguard your organization’s data against unforeseen loss or corruption. The plan helps restore essential operations quickly and effectively, reducing the impact of the incident. It rests on predefined protocols and careful preparations that optimize recovery. Here’s a breakdown of the components.
Prioritizing Data and Recovery Objectives
The first phase is identifying business-critical data. Your organization must assess which datasets are important for key operations and services. Analyzing how data loss affects different parts of your business helps prioritize recovery tasks based on their urgency and importance.
Establish recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) to define the acceptable thresholds for downtime and data loss, respectively. RTOs specify the time within which business functions must be restored after disruption, while RPOs define the maximum file age for recovery from backup to resume normal operations. By focusing on these objectives, you can make sure that your recovery efforts are in line with your business continuity needs.
Testing of Backup Integrity
Regularly check and test your backups—don’t just assume they will work when you need them. Periodically test the recovery process to make sure your backups are reliable and functional. This includes simulating disaster scenarios to confirm that you can restore your data within the expected timeframe and ensure that the restored data is complete and usable.
Test drills are important for finding weaknesses in the recovery process. They help us fix any problems before an actual incident happens. This proactive approach reassures your organization’s stakeholders that you are prepared, and it ensures that the recovery team can follow the necessary procedures under pressure.
Recovery Procedures
The recovery protocols should include step-by-step instructions for starting the recovery process, assigning roles and responsibilities, and establishing communication methods among team members during a crisis.
The documentation should clearly include contact information for key personnel, guidelines for making decisions in different situations, and the steps for restoring systems and data. Being as clear as possible helps reduce recovery times and minimize the impact of operational disruptions.
Ensuring Data Security and Compliance
A data backup strategy ensures the security and privacy of the data at every stage, from creation and backup to restoration. As cyber threats increase and regulations become stricter, it’s important to protect backed-up data from unauthorized access and follow relevant laws and standards.
Encrypting Backups
Protect sensitive information by backing up your data in a way that nobody else can read. By scrambling the data, it makes it unlikely that anyone can access it without the proper decryption key. This applies to backups stored off-site, in the cloud, and on-premises.
Always use strong, up-to-date encryption algorithms. It is also important that you manage encryption keys meticulously. Securely store keys apart from the data they encrypt and regularly rotate the keys to enhance security measures.
Adhering to Compliance and Industry Standards
Laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the United States and many others worldwide set stringent guidelines for the management of personal and sensitive data. Compliance reinforces public trust in an organization’s ability to protect consumer data.
Adherence to these regulations requires understanding the specific standards relevant to your sector and operational jurisdiction(s). This might include implementing policies that govern how long backups are stored, ensuring that data is stored and transferred securely and providing mechanisms for consumers to request the deletion of their data, where applicable.
Conclusion
The best way to safeguard your organization’s information is to create a data backup and recovery strategy that covers automating backups, strategic storage solutions—a mix of on-site and off-site options—, data security and compliance through encryption and adherence to regulations. With this strategy, you can ensure your organization’s continuity of operations, maintain stakeholder trust, and effectively reduce the risks associated with data loss and cyber threats.
At HOCS Consulting, we customize data backup and recovery strategies for specific industries. We help ensure data is protected against cyber threats, provide solutions that can quickly retrieve data and adhere to most compliance requirements. You can schedule a complimentary consultation to discuss the specific needs of your business and create the plan you and your organization need.