02 April 2024
Celebrated around the globe on 31 March each year, World Backup Day is with us again – this year sharing the limelight with Daylight Savings Day, Easter, and of course, National Bunsen Burner Day…
Every day, enterprises, governments, and consumers lose huge volumes of valuable data by failing to backup. And today’s widespread AI use means that backing up has never been more important; new research shows that bad actors are increasingly adopting AI to forge more sophisticated attacks.
As per ‘Mission Critical: Unlocking the UK AI Opportunity Through Cybersecurity,’ 87% of the UK’s enterprises are vulnerable to cyber-attacks, including 39% who are ‘at high risk.’ The attack on the UK’s election watchdog – recently attributed to China’s Advanced Persistent Threat 31 (APT 31) hacker group – is a poignant example of the threat faced today.
Accordingly, World Backup Day serves as a timely reminder for the need for effective data backup, recovery strategies and protection protocols.
“Modern data threats require modern data protection solutions,” states Fred Lherault, field CTO (EMEA/emerging Markets) at Pure Storage. “It’s critical that organisations double down on building resilience and agility across their organisation. By future-proofing critical IT infrastructure and implementing a modern data protection strategy with effective processes to safeguard and restore data, organisations can avoid cybersecurity and downtime nightmares.”
Many businesses are implementing tailored strategies, including real-time, incremental backups, which are less resource-intensive than full database backups and allow mission-critical data to be saved more frequently.
“Automation takes this process one step further – for example, change data capture (CDC) technology creates backups in real-time only as changes occur – replicating even high-volume datasets without overwhelming IT infrastructure,” explains Steve Mulholland, RVP EMEA, Fivetran. “Backups are only as good as the tools that run them. A solid backup strategy built on technologies like CDC can help businesses recover faster, maintain compliance and improve performance across IT estates.”
Katie McCullough, CISO at Panzura recommends thinking “beyond traditional backup strategies by integrating immutable data and robust security controls from the outset. This approach not only enhances data recovery capabilities but also fortifies data against cyber threats, making resilience an intrinsic part of the data recovery process.”
Effective data backup solutions can help mitigate the risk of data loss and significantly speed up data recovery – however, the human factor is critical: “the cybersecurity chain is only as strong as the weakest link – the human link,” says Dylan Border, director of cybersecurity, Hyland. “That makes World Backup Day a day to focus on avoiding complacency above all else. To ignore constantly changing factors, or to assume that you have mastered your craft, is what will put your organisation most at risk. Are your employees getting regular security awareness training? If not, make it a priority to share security training materials once a month. Are your team members experts of the security tools they manage? If there’s gaps in their knowledge, get them training. There’s more to backing up files than might meet the eye.”
“This World Backup Day, let’s commit to a culture of regular testing and formalised data recovery plans, ensuring data isn’t just backed up but is truly resilient and recoverable in the exact form needed, exactly when needed,” pledges McCullough.
