Are you working from home and/or dependent on your Windows laptop/tablet? You can’t be down for hours or days anymore. Learn about practical and affordable solutions to reduce your risk.
Attend this 30-minute webinar to learn:
Most common causes of computer failures
What is different about this backup and how it works
How to recovery solution works
You will walk away with an understanding of the practical and affordable solution to reduce your risk. Save your spot now!
https://resultsmattercloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/computer-recovery-webinar-results-matter-cloud-services-image-source-jay-prajapati-on-unsplash-v3-twitter-1200x675px.jpg6751200Dwighthttps://resultsmattercloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/results-matter-cloud-services-logo-light-v3.pngDwight2020-03-24 14:47:582020-03-24 14:51:17Webinar: Home or work PC downtime reduced to minutes
If there’s one organization you tend to trust with your information, it’s the government. The truth is though that many municipalities are simply not doing enough to protect themselves, and your data. Ransomware attacks are targeting municipalities due to their valuable information and security vulnerabilities.
Canadians and American Municipalities Both Affected
The following are some of the Canadian cities that have had cyber attacks occur since 2018:
Cambridge, ON, CAN
Stratford, ON, CAN
Wasaga Beach, ON, CAN
Midland, ON, CAN
Regina, SK, CAN
Mekinac, QC, CAN
Recorded Future Blog compiled a list of American cities and public services hit by ransomware starting in 2013. The image below shows 2018 onwards, which is almost half of the list.
Almost half of the ransomware attacks on US cities since 2013 have occurred in the past year and a half.
More Than Pennies
On May 7, 2019, the City of Baltimore, MD was attacked for the second time in 15 months. This resulted in disruptions to the city systems for over 2 weeks. The expected cost of the attack to Baltimore is $18.2M. The city now looks to rebuild their systems and make up for lost revenue. It is not hard to imagine that Canadian municipalities are also at increased risk for ransomware attacks.
Are You Prepared for the Consequences?
As a small business owner, or member of government, how long are you willing to allow your systems to be down for, and how much money are you prepared to lose? Have you considered the money lost during the time the business is down? The money required to rebuild critical systems? Ransomware attacks are becoming increasingly creative, and cities need to consider that any of the following could happen to them:
Locking out of city employees from email accounts
Locking out of city employees from phone systems
Shutdown of 911 system
Loss of police footage potentially affecting future cases
Inability to complete real estate transactions
Inability to pay parking tickets, taxes
Some Cities Are Stepping Up
In light of all of this, municipalities such as Fredericton, NB have taken steps to protect themselves by partnering with local companies to improve their cyber security and business continuity plans before a crippling cyberattack occurs. In this case, Fredericton approved spending of upwards of $100,000 per year for 3 years. With proper preparation, municipalities can better protect themselves and their citizens, and limit their damages and downtime in the event of an attack.
It doesn’t always take someone malicious to hack your computer system, but regardless of the reason, if a business is shut down for any matter of time, revenue is lost. The first step in running any business is ensuring there are basic backup plans in place.
Picture this; a freak September snowstorm sends the city into panic. Tree branches are breaking from the weight of the snow, and one just happens to fall on the power line closest to your downtown office. The power goes out and your building is plunged into dark.
Power goes out, operations stop. All your files are now gone and without any way of getting them back, you’re starting at the bottom again.
When breaches occur, for any reason, operations and finance are the first things to be affected, and the network outages caused usually have long-lasting impact. Most businesses cannot come back from even three days spent at a standstill.
So what can you do?
By following the 3-2-1 rule, when it comes to a basic backup strategy, your company will be laughing during the next storm.
Your backup plan should be thought of like this; there should be 3 total copies of data, 2 of which are local, but on different mediums, and at least 1 copy that is offsite.
The local copy is what users rely on for primary access.
One of the easiest ways to create a backup is to store copies on any network attached storage, an external hard drive, or a USB drive.
Backup local copy to a local avenue.
Gives user immediate, instant access to whatever data needed, despite if it’s been deleted, overwritten, or lost.
Store a copy of all files securely offsite.
This helps in the aforementioned disaster. Regardless if something happens to the physical place of business, all data is still safe and secure.
There are many cloud-based solutions, which store information on remote servers which are accessed through the Internet.
Regardless of how you are backing up your data, the first step in protecting your business is having that backup plan. Every minute your team is without access will cost more than just revenue.
Take a look at how much it would cost your business if your systems were unavailable. Try our online calculator yourself or give us a call 403-455-5969. The results might surprise you.
https://resultsmattercloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/digital-storage-media-1443484_1280.jpg8541280Digital Teamhttps://resultsmattercloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/results-matter-cloud-services-logo-light-v3.pngDigital Team2018-04-27 16:20:202019-07-15 12:48:12The Importance of a Basic Backup Strategy
Making sure your business can continue operating in case of a disaster is just as essential to small businesses as it is to the largest enterprises. For that reason, business continuity using data backup is an essential solution that small businesses should deploy.
Data backup solutions come in all different flavors. Cloud-based solutions are increasingly popular, but they provide only a partial answer. On-site solutions also have their weaknesses.
The answer is a hybrid cloud. It provides the best of all worlds: you can recover data swiftly from a local device for the most common causes of data loss, but you have all your data safely stored in the cloud for more extreme events in which the local device is destroyed or unavailable.
Executive Summary
Small businesses in general don’t have the same IT budgets and staffs as larger enterprises. Yet just like larger organizations they need to protect their data and make sure they can get back to business rapidly after a disaster or other event that compromises their data and systems.
We will discuss what’s at stake when it comes to not just protecting, but also managing, your data (hint: your business). We’ll explain why it’s important to think in terms of business continuity rather than simply data backup. And we’ll look at how to calculate the all-important Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) so that you can get what you need from your business continuity vendor.
Small businesses in general don’t have the same IT budgets and staffs as larger enterprises. Yet just like larger organizations they need to protect their data and make sure they can get back to business rapidly after a disaster or other event that compromises their data and systems.
We will discuss what’s at stake when it comes to not just protecting, but also managing, your data (hint: your business). We’ll explain why it’s important to think in terms of business continuity rather than simply data backup. And we’ll look at how to calculate the all-important Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) so that you can get what you need from your business continuity vendor.
Data backup versus business continuity: what’s the difference?
Although overlapping, these terms represent uniquely different mindsets when it comes to data protection.
Data backup answers the questions: is my data safe? Can I get it back in case of a failure?
Business continuity, on the other hand, involves thinking about the business at a higher level, and asks: how quickly can I get my business operating again in case of system failure? Thinking about data backup is a good first step. But in case of failure, you have to get that data back and restore it quickly enough so your business doesn’t suffer. For example, if your server dies—and remember, hardware failure is the No. 1 cause of lost data—you wouldn’t be able to quickly get back to work if you only had file-level backup. For you to start working again, your server would need to be replaced, all software re-installed, data re-installed and then the whole system would need to be configured with your settings and preferences. This process could take hours or even days—and in the meantime, your users can’t get their jobs done.
When comparing vendors for a backup solution, small businesses say that reliability (33 per- cent) and price (29 percent) top the list of factors that drive their choices. But they should consider other factors as well.
Superior Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) — Think in terms of business continuity rather than simply backup, and calculate how much downtime your business can endure and still survive (RTO) as well as how much data you can afford to lose (RPO). Choose a vendor that can guarantee top RTOs and RPOs.
Hybrid cloud backup—As discussed above, taking a hybrid approach fixes the vulnerabilities that a cloud-only or local-only solution possess.
Image-based backup—Make sure that the backup solution takes images of all your data and systems, and doesn’t simply copy the files alone.
Instant local and off-site virtualization.
Screenshot backup verification. What good is a backup if it’s not working?
Images saved as VMDK for faster recovery times.
For more information contact us by e-mail or call us at 403-455-5969.
https://resultsmattercloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Backup-your-data-and-everything-will-be-great-right-question-mark1.png480854Dwighthttps://resultsmattercloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/results-matter-cloud-services-logo-light-v3.pngDwight2016-06-12 12:29:142020-01-22 18:30:21Backup vs. Business Continuity
How can you ensure your business can keep running after an unplanned event, ranging from something minor to a disaster?
That’s why having business continuity in place should be a priority, not just because it’s best practice but because it’s good for your bottom line as well.
Watch our partner, Datto, and disaster recovery expert, Donna Childs, in this informative webinar.
You will learn:
Why business continuity puts money back into your pocket
How to reduce costs through business continuity
Effective strategies to increase revenues through continuity measures
