By Chandan Pani, Chief Information Security Officer, LTIMindtree
Imagine this scenario – you’ve lost a mobile phone with tons of data – photographs, contacts, apps, games, digital wallet information, etc., assimilated over the years. While you could buy yourself a new, high-end mobile phone, imagine losing all that precious data because it was not backed up. Seems nightmarish!
For over 12 years now, March 31st has been commemorated as World Backup Day globally. This day spotlights the importance of protecting data and insulating systems. Over the past decade, and notably the past few years, the digitalization and pervasiveness of technologies have increased the data footprint to mammoth extents, making both individuals and organizations vulnerable to threats and attacks.
No matter how secure or safe one feels about data and the equipment put in place to secure it, there is always a port of vulnerability. Data has it that more than 40% of people don’t have the wherewithal to save their important files in the event of a tragedy. Data loss is not a corporate phenomenon anymore, every minute hundreds are losing their smart phones, and the numbers seem to climb the charts for computers, website and cloud storages. Human errors and accidents also contribute to the cause, costing valuable time and money as organization or individual try to wade their way to recover precious data and mitigate the effect of the ensuing crisis.
Another area of vulnerability that has spiked at an astronomical pace is cybercrimes. With data becoming a lucrative commodity, data alteration, manipulation and deletion have become common practices used by cyber criminals to dent significant damage. According to the 2022 “Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report,” ransomware attacks surged dramatically in 2022; ransomware was involved in 25% of all reported breaches.
There is no debate that data is now an integral part of business continuity, strategy, decision making and human life. Data protection, in this light, has become a mandate for any organization striving to build their business, establish credibility with stakeholders and build trust with their clients and communities. In the same vein as we have a “Password Reset” prompt for our systems periodically, set a reminder for data backup – even if it is just once a year! Ultimately, during the deadliest ransomware attacks, clean data backup becomes the knight in shining armor!
There are tons of technology solutions that support data backup – both for corporates and individuals. Choose the one that best fits your requirement wisely. Establishing a simple but disciplined back-up routine could prevent you from becoming the one with a misfortune this year.
From today, let us all pledge to back up our data. Let us take it one step further and secure it with the necessary protection gateways.