Way back 5 years ago, a company whose business was to store code in the cloud simply vanished. Nearly in the blink of an eye Code Spaces went out of business. The culprit? Its confidence that the cloud was a golden bullet in storing data.
Code Spaces was a company that offered to development teams (I mean programmers here) code repositories and project management tools. It had been thriving for over 7 years, with no shortage of folks interested in its services.
But that all ended when its cloud storage was attacked.
I know you already know at least the basics of security. We all talk about security and backups—especially in the cloud—but wat we don’t understand is: how are we protecting our data in the cloud?
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Over the past few years there has been no shortage of news of a data breach or vulnerability. Each had major financial and reputation-related consequences. Each with its own way in.
It might seem impossible. As organization leaders or board members, how can you make sure your organization can escape the barrage of headlines bombarding the news? Who can you trust and what advice will be critical to avoid a devastating mistake?
One thing is clear: what most organizations have been doing is not good enough anymore. Attacks and breaches keep occurring. Cybercriminals are defining clear targets—as if they had better marketing strategies defining clearly each of their targets. They know your vulnerabilities and have vectors to break through those weaknesses.
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You say you have an archive of your data, that’s all you need. I’d say not quite. Data archives and backups are different—as in they are meant for different things.
In today’s world where we are confronting more natural disasters, more cyberattacks and greater risks to your business continuity. I want to make sure you are well-informed on the nuanced differences between data backups and archives so that you are certain your organization has the tools it needs to recover quickly.
First, what is a backup?
You can think of a backup as a copy of data that you can use to restore that data in case of loss or damage. The original data will not be deleted after a backup is made (in fact, you may have backups every single day or hour in a day, depending on how sensitive your organization is to data continuity).
Many organizations will retain backups for a certain amount of time (commonly a data retention policy spans a month or two).
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We all are working together to fulfill common core causes. Yes, we—even those of us in information systems and information technology—are here to ensure patients and staff are safe and healthy.
Policies and procedures serve several roles, but one core role is to ensure this safety. Policies can be thought of as very high level guidelines defining ways in which we, as team members, can shape decisions toward our organization’s mission of helping our patients.
Procedures, on the other hand, provide clear guidelines for lower-level processes clarifying specific steps team members need to take to ensure they are adhering to your organization’s policies. These policies and procedures can often serve to show compliance to current standards (treatment standards, security standards, or operational standards).
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There is a lot of confusion when it comes to cloud data and backups.
Most people assume that the cloud inherently backs up there data. If you are using Office 365, OneDrive, or some other cloud-based data storage solution, you might be surprised to learn that your data isn’t really backed up.
What do I mean here?
Yes, you have a copy of your data in the cloud and if you have a disaster in your office you very well will be able to access that information somewhere else.
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I wish I could give you a resounding ‘Yes’ to answer this simple question, but in today’s cyber environment and knowing all of the risks involved I’d have to say you’d be better off not. I want to share a story that recently happened at a popular big city hotel where a lot of business travelers frequent. This is just one example of many examples with various public Wi-Fi connections.
As you are getting ready for your next business trip or vacation, please keep this story in mind. If you would like to speak to me or someone on my team to find a solution that would work for traveling, we are here to help!
This story mimics many that have happened and reflect how criminals exploit Wi-Fi to get valuable data.
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