“Are you being asked to pay a ransom to get your files back?”
Cyber-attacks only happen to large companies, right? Why would a hacker bother with me? Yes, we hear mostly of large companies such as M&S and Jaguar Land Rover and the massive impact it has on them, their profitability and to some extent their future viability. But what would be the impact on your business if all your PC’s were inaccessible and your data files corrupted?
We usually only address this after the fact when your world is in chaos. In your busy world it is important not to neglect this part of your business infrastructure.
Company/Business Data Files
Like me you probably use Microsoft, Adobe or Google products to create your business content. These applications generate numerous files held locally on your PC in a tree structure devised by you to suit your business needs.
If you are a little more aware they will be possibly “backed up” to cloud storage such as OneDrive or Google Drive or a USB Hard Drive. More on back-up’s later.
“Are these files secure and are you protected against hackers and other malware?”
The simple answer is NO. Currently for data security provided through MS OneDrive, MS makes it clear that it takes no responsibility for the safety of their client’s data and that clients should take measures to ensure that it is suitably backed up. Simply synchronising your data to a new storage drive will prevent it being lost but not from being corrupted or deleted by hackers or ransomware.
Similarly, if you copy your data to a USB Hard Drive; when did you last run a backup, is the drive secure and off-site (or in a drawer), how much work have you done since the last backup?
Backup Strategy and Disaster Recovery
What is an effective backup strategy? This should ensure that should the worst happen easy and speedy access to your data can be restored.
Expert advice is to adopt a 3-2-1 backup strategy providing 3 separate copies of the data in 2 separate locations (1 on-site, 1 off-site) using 2 methods. Your choice of backup strategy will govern your resilience to disaster recovery from any attacks.
To devise an effective strategy, it is necessary to consider the following:
- What to back up
- Where to store the data
- What are the recovery objectives
What to back up
- Workstations – employee laptops & workstations
- Cloud storage and SAAS accounts (such as Canva) – MS 365 etc
- Other file servers
- NAS (Network attached storage) data
Where to store the data
- On Premises – local laptops or local NAS devices
- Off Site – off site NAS or other cloud repository
What are the recovery objectives
Consider the following:
- Uptime – how important is it not to lose time while recovering the data
- Data Access- how important is it to maintain access to data
- User tools – how important is it for users to self-serve their requirements or to use an IT service.
The scale of your business will also affect the decisions made. Will your data capacity be measured in Gbytes or Tbytes? Storage cost and accessibility will need to be factored into any solution.
Small Scale Solution
If, like me, you are running an SME sized business with 2 or 3 workstations and up to 100 Gbytes data storage requirements, can you still protect yourself?
Typical data sources I need to protect include:
- Folder Structure
- Text documents and spreadsheets
- Graphic images
- Website data
By creating a Local Area Network (LAN) of my IT equipment and adopting a software and hardware solution from Synology Ltd., an internationally renowned manufacturer of data management devices, all my data storage and protection requirements have been set up within my business.
Where Should You start?
A typical storage solution would be:
- Your PC hard drive will store your file structure and datafiles on an internal hard drive. – 1st copy-first method. PC applications create the first copy of the data files. These files can be hacked and corrupted.
- These files are synchronised and shared with other users through a cloud provider such as MS OneDrive – 2nd copy-first method. Providing a safe copy if your PC fails, but corrupted data files would be synchronised creating a second version of your corrupted files.
- These files are synchronised with a Synology NAS on your premises – 3rd copy-first method. A further safe copy but again corrupted data files would be synchronised creating a third version of your corrupted files.
- These files are backed up to an offsite Synology NAS – 3rd copy offsite-2nd method. This could optionally be to a bespoke backup service instead of a second NAS drive. This is the first real backup of your data and is sent to an offsite NAS device. The data file’s version history is created and maintained so that the earlier uncorrupted data can be recovered enabling your working data to be restored.
It’s clear to see that although I have created multiple copies of my data to protect against equipment failure only item 4 will protect against data corruption and ransomware attacks. Items 1 to 3 simply cascade the corrupted file data overwriting the original data.
This cascade of corrupted data can be intercepted at stage 3 to improve system resilience using a third method provided by Synology to create versioned snapshots of the data that can be similarly restored. Similar snapshots can be made of the workstation set up to restore my PC to an earlier state like a MS restore point.
Why Use a NAS drive?
A NAS drive by Synology not only provides a data storage hard drive but enables multiple hard drives to store the data in unison. The device stores data spanning across multiple drives so that should one drive fail the data is still completely accessible. By adding either larger or additional drives it is easy to scale up your storage capacity.
In addition to securing against hard drive failure the device also enables multiple services to manage hard disk health, data synchronisation, data backup and storage and snapshot replication. These services can be accessed across the internet by multiple users in any location providing a Wide Area Network (WAN) for your business.
It can also, if so configured, act as your cloud storage solution managed entirely in-house.
Larger Business Solution
Whatever the scale of your business the principles here still apply, and the questions raised in the article need to be answered but at a greater scale.
Synology backup solutions can be expanded to support the demands of larger businesses.
Test your backup process
It is vital having set up your data management system that you regularly test the capabilities included. To recover and restore data content by simulating typical attacks to the system. Whether it is equipment failure, hacker actions or ransomware requests. By doing this regularly, when the worst happens, you will be well prepared to get your business up-and-running quickly.
