5 mistakes companies make when protecting their data

 

Technological evolution has made companies more vulnerable to data loss. In this context, Arcserve lists the five mistakes companies make when protecting valuable information.
 
It is very important to understand the need to protect companies' data, applications and systems. Year after year computer attacks increase and security in cyberspace becomes a priority for all organizations. Backup is the first level of data protection, but it's not enough.
 
Daniela Costa, VP for Latin America at Arcserve, says that we are in a very competitive world, in which companies need to be increasingly productive. And it highlights that it is necessary to reduce or eliminate risks of unavailability, as well as associated negative financial impacts, which may affect the productivity of a company's work team and business.
 
Arcserve explains the 5 mistakes companies make when it comes to data protection:
 
1 – Believing that the company is 100% protected. There are large governmental, financial and technological organizations that have suffered cyber attacks, which demonstrates that despite high budgets and complex security systems, nothing guarantees security. For this reason, it is important to understand that it is a process of constant investment and evolution.
 
2 – Believing that with just one solution implemented, you are 100% protected and not complementing security tools with documented processes and trained staff. It is important to verify that the solutions implemented complement each other and are as complete as possible, that the company's security processes, in general, are connected and that everything is documented and defined in agreement with all the teams involved. Relying only on point solutions without a context of the entire environment can generate unnecessary risks and potential failures in the event of a disaster.
 
3 – Work with the probabilities that a disaster may occur. The important question that must be asked is not if, but when a disaster will happen. Data loss can occur for many reasons, from the simplest to the most complex: human errors, air conditioning problems in offices, hardware failure and loss of energy (blackouts) are very common disasters faced by any company.
 
4 – Don't assume that the important thing is not just to make the backup; is to ensure recovery. Companies must assume that threats evolve. The way they act and how they can anticipate them will make monitoring really effective. According to a recent survey by Arcserve, for its customers in Latin America, only 37% companies have a complete disaster recovery plan documented, and half of them have never tested whether or not the plan worked. Today, we talk about full recovery, business continuity, not just backup. Ensuring full recovery of all critical systems in the shortest possible time is critical to staying competitive today.
 
 
5- Do not assume that business continuity is one of the priorities in the IT budget. 50% of Arcserve customers said they did not know how to calculate the cost of a disaster, a fact that directly affects the profitability of the companies. These costs can be direct – cost to raise the entire environment in the event of a disaster: hardware replacement, cost of employees/hour, downtime of critical systems such as billing – but also indirect costs associated with the image with customers and the company's reputation in its segment. Only 9% of companies expressed that the cost associated with a data loss event at their companies is equal to or greater than US$ 50K.
 
It is important to note that the concern about the security and availability of information and systems is a current reality in the IT area. In relation to this issue, Arcserve launched in February 2016 version 6 of its solution, Unified Data Protection, aimed at the corporate sector, which combines backup, replication and high availability technologies for Windows and Linux multiplatform environments, virtual, physical and in the cloud. In addition, it has a simple and friendly interface that also facilitates implementation and management by the administrator, without high additional maintenance costs.