How to Back up Correctly and Reliably

You start to telework and you are surprised that you do not have your files that you used while you were in the office. Why is this happening? Didn’t they make a backup? How can I restore it? These and other questions are asked by various contributors each day. Backups are crucial to ensure that people continue with the operation despite any adverse situation that may compromise the privacy and integrity of the data, such as the popular ransomware attacks.

Today in this article we are going to make a series of very important recommendations to keep your backup safe, and that is that it is not only important to make backups, but to make them correctly and also keep them.

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Enable encryption on backups

More than ever before, a critical point of backups is that they have encryption. Just as the data traffic that occurs through VPNs have high levels of encryption, especially for data in transit over the network, backups must also be encrypted. Originally, the act of enabling backup encryption was optional and in many cases, it was disabled. So a good part of the users and / or even the support technicians themselves, do not usually review the configuration options and consider enabling it.

This is why it is important that all levels of organization are aware of the importance of keeping data encrypted, especially when telecommuting. There are processes that generate high amounts of data sets, which could not be exposed. Mainly due to its nature of having sensitive content such as personal, financial, commercial or economic data.

An option that usually has a good level of acceptance and implementation is the internal communication channel of an organization. If you are responsible for support, prepare clear, intuitive and specific tutorials on activities such as: enabling encryption of backups, how to create copies, good practices and other practical tips.

It is possible that the company you work for, usually sends you emails with information of all kinds. If so, pay attention to the content they share. Many of these have to do with better management of our office automation programs or productivity in general. Others may be related to data security and privacy, such as creating backups correctly.

Make backup copies of (all) the necessary data

Any type of data or data set that you wish to recover in the event of any eventuality, must be included in the backup copies. On the other hand, it is good to have clear policies and procedures regarding the backup copies of the data that you generate through the different cloud services. It is good to keep in mind that it is believed that the data that is stored in the cloud already counts as backups automatically. Or worse yet, they believe that it will never be possible to erase that data from the cloud, as if it were a storage disk with infinite capacities.

Another thing you shouldn’t neglect about backups is the 3-2-1 rule. What does this scheme consist of when making backup copies?

  • 3 backups in total.
  • 2 different media where we have these backups (an external hard drive and a NAS server, for example)
  • 1 external or offline backup, physically away from the location (in the cloud or on another NAS / DAS that is physically away from the company)

The purpose of this rule is to minimize the chances of having terrible consequences as a consequence of attacks such as ransomware, or activities caused by malware in general. Even this would help the organization not be affected against possible inclement weather (thunderstorms, fire etc).

Confirm that backups really work

There is nothing worse than making a backup, and when we are going to use it to restore a system, they do not respond or are not available when we really need them. In the event that you try to restore a certain backup and telework, be sure to follow the instructions provided by the support department in detail. Otherwise, do not hesitate to contact them to receive the assistance you need.

We emphasize the quality of an organization’s internal communications regarding backups . More than anything because more than one contributor will encounter a situation where they must restore a certain backup. If it is not clear what to do or how to do it due to lack of instructions or support not available properly, it will be a very bad experience.

Test with backups

As technical support managers, we should not ensure that backups function solely for the purpose of passing audit tests. Rather, it is necessary to subject the backup copies, their creations and restorations to real situations, such as, for example, the collaborators who are going to start working remotely, but with a different computer than the one they had before.

The scenario described above is one of the most frequent. Because the collaborator may need a laptop for reasons of mobility and practicality, instead of the desktop computer they originally use. Make sure this achieves, for example, restoring the files you use most frequently, such as those from office solutions such as spreadsheets, text documents, and presentations.

A highly recommended backup service is Securizame Reborn , this service is aimed at companies that need to do a local backup and another in the cloud, and all with the maximum security and reliability measures. The backups are encrypted, they are ransomware-proof using snapshots, and the Securizame team is in charge of monitoring the copies continuously to detect any type of problem. If you want to make backups at home, our recommendation is to use a NAS server for storage , and software such as Acronis True Image to perform the backup, although there are many others that also work really well.