Data loss; not always intentional

Cyber Security's has a strong focus on Confidentiality currently because it is newsworthy, but the loss of Integrity and Availability of your data, intentional or not, should be noteworthy.

We are seeing the backlash from news stories about Privacy breaches in the form of fines and reputation damage but have you considered the impact on your business if you lost all of your data?

Imagine losing all of your computer data; customer information, quotes, sales orders, payment records, or supplier information, purchase orders, inventory, invoices, business records, tax records, pricelists, brochures, saved passwords, personal stuff ...

Loss of data can be due to ransomware, where an attacker encrypts your data and requests payment for the key to decrypt it. How much would you be willing to pay? Add 50%. Data loss can also occur if a storage device fails like a HDD or SSD and all storage mediums have a working life as they will all fail eventually. Then there are threats like fire, or floods, or earthquakes and while insurance may pay for your "stuff", they cannot recover lost data.

Industry terms include DRP - Disaster Recovery Plan and BCP - Business Continuity Plan. On a smaller scale the principles are the same and they have 2 facets, firstly a backup of your data, and then a procedure to restore that backed up data to get you going again.

There is no universally correct backup plan for a business size, or operational model, or an industry. The correct backup plan balances:

time and complexity to back up your data,

how often you want to back up,

time to recover your backed up data,

how often you can afford to "fire drill" a recovery,

onsite, offsite or hybrid backup,

storage space available vs data to be stored.

Which one is correct for you requires an analysis of your needs, your risk appetite, and your willingness to expend time and money to increase your data's Integrity and Availability.

In line with our not-for-profit model Celtech have invested in CRAFT, an in-depth cyber risk self assessment tool that is FREE to use. You fill in the answers as accurately as you can, and the report will advise you of the threats most likely to impact you. It also helps you understand what features are more valuable than others in your Backup and Recovery Plan and the pros and cons of each.

If you have, or can get, the know-how to respond to the report's recommendations, you are all done. If you appreciate that we offered this to you for free and you need some support, our not-for-profit models provides a variety of compelling reasons to consider choosing us to guide, support, or perform your uplift with you.

As part of Celtech's partnership philosophy and advice, we recommend our clients rerun CRAFT yearly. Celtech's continuous improvement plan means we update our tools to reflect changes in the cyber threat Landscape and as your business changes, your vulnerabilities and risks may benefit from reassessment too, and it is free to reuse.