DATA BACKUP AND SECURITY
What is Data Back-up?
Data backup involves the saving of your data in one or more locations, so that if something happens to your computer, you still have your data reserved in backup. This allows you to keep your data even if you lose your computer.
What is Data Security?
Data security is the means of ensuring that data is kept safe from corruption and that access to it is suitably controlled. Thus data security helps to ensure privacy. data It also helps in protecting personal data. Information security means protecting information and information systems from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction.
Why should I be concerned about Data Backup and Security?
You may not think this will affect you but data loss is common and can happen in many ways. A common cause of loss is the physical failure of the media the data is stored on. You probably have everything saved on your PCs hard drive. That hard drive will not live forever. Normally hard drives will live for years without incident. But eventually they will die. It might happen gradually, by more and more bad clusters accumulating until most of the drive is unusable. Or it might happen suddenly, the hard drive just dies without warning. Another possible cause for data loss is power failure or spikes. It can result in loss of the document you are currently working on because you did not save it before the power failed and your PC shut down, or in loss of your entire hard drive because a power surge fried your motherboard and destroyed the file allocation table of your hard drive. Also worth mentioning is data loss through virus attacks. There are plenty of nasty computer viruses out there that will delete files on an infected machine. That's why Virus Protection is just as important.
Without data backup you are running the risk of losing your data and a failure to keep your data secure could also lead to it being stolen and misused. How much will that cost you? Things like financial data (Receivables, Payables, and Tax Information), would be disastrous to lose, as would your work that you have spent many hours or days to prepare for yourself or your clients. When calculating the cost, don’t forget the man-hours re-installing the base software on your computer, reconfiguring your environment to suit your preferences again, and the impact of losing your e-mail addresses, and Internet bookmarks. Without a full data backup, getting up and going again could easily cost you several days of productivity.. How much is your time worth to you?
How should I back up my data?
Backups are useful primarily for two purposes. The first is to restore a state following a disaster (called disaster recovery). The second is to restore small numbers of files after they have been accidentally deleted or corrupted. Backups are typically that last line of defense against data loss, and consequently the least granular and the least convenient to use.. Back up of data is one of the most important, yet also one of the most neglected areas of computing
Data backup involves the saving of your data in two or more locations, so that if something happens to your computer, you still have your data reserved in backup. This allows you to keep your data even if you lose your computer. While you might think that the chances of having a major loss of data on your computer or even having your entire computer crash are very small, disasters happen and it is always best to prepare for the worst, especially when it comes to something as irreplaceable as your files.
Data backup can take many forms. After all, any medium on which you save your files apart from your primary computer is considered backup. You might even want to backup your data in more than one location, just in case. If you depend highly upon your computer and upon the files contained therein, you can never be too careful when it comes to protecting your files from disaster.
You can also backup your files online. There are many companies that provide online storage drives which will allow you to store your data without the need for disks or drives or anything of the sort. This can be very beneficial as you know that you will always be able to obtain your data, without having to worry about having the proper CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive, or anything of this sort.
How can I improve my Data Security
As well as backing up your data, the need to protect your data is vital. Typical approaches to improving computer security that you can implement yourself include:
- Install a firewall and virus checking on your computers.
- Consider upgrading your operating system
- Protect your computer by downloading the latest patches or security updates, which should cover vulnerabilities
- Only allow your staff access to the information they need to do their job and don’t let them share passwords
- Encrypt any personal information held electronically if it will cause damage or distress if it is lost or stolen
- Take regular back ups of the information on your computer system and keep them in a separate place so that if you lose your computers, you don’t lose the information
- Don’t dispose of old computers until all the personal information on them has been securely removed (by using technology or destroying the hard disk)
- Consider installing anti-spyware. This protects against software that can be secretly installed on your computers. It can monitor use, look for private information or even give someone else control of your computer.
PS4B’s approach to Databack up and Security
PS4B works with companies to provide suitable data back up and security solutions by;
Helping organisations to be one step ahead by producing a disaster recovery plan. This ensures that your business is fully prepared and can get back to business promptly should a disaster occur.
Providing reliable and secure data backup solutions, tailored to the needs of your organization. This includes offsite back up and storage services.
PS4B recommend the use of a virus protection program offering effective protection features, including infected file quarantine, online virus protection updates, and an automatic scheduler. PS4B preferred software is Symantec which is designed to start running as soon as your computer's operating system starts and it runs in the background, checking all vulnerable files for possible infection by mischievous, sometimes malevolent, programs called viruses and worms.
... So for more information call PS4B on 024 7622 4040
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