In the digital world of the 21st century, many of us understand the importance of data. Data is now a major source of intellectual property, and technology has a direct impact on innovation in your company workflow.
Data includes your employee’s records, customer information, company assets, and more, making business owners vulnerable to a range of internal and external threats. Suffering a catastrophic data loss could devastate your company, making it a priority for businesses to have backup and data recovery plans in place to protect data loss.
What Could Data Loss Cost your Business?
While large corporations have backup and discovery prevention plans to protect against data loss, many small businesses do not have the means to meet those demands. Having an in-house team to monitor threats can be costly, and as a small business owner, you know that there are other overhead costs that may take priority.
Small businesses are just as likely to be a target of a cyber attack as a large corporation. External data breaches may seem like they would be the most likely threat, but in many cases, human error and system glitches put small businesses at risk for internal data loss as well.
The ROI of a backup recovery and disaster plan will save you money from data loss and will also save your staff frustration with technology gaps, hours of downtime, and will also provide you with the peace of mind that your business is protected.
Threats to Your Company’s Data
There are three types of common threats to your data, environmental, external, and internal. Each of these types of threats requires a different method to effectively protect your data from them.
Threats from the Environment
From floods and hurricanes to earthquakes and other natural disasters, data loss is not the first type of loss people think of. While you cannot predict when a natural disaster may affect your business, you can safeguard your data with proper backup systems to help prevent additional downtime and monetary loss caused by a natural disaster.
External Data Threats
As the exchange of data has increased, many people have been exposed to external threats ranging from phishing attacks to malware threats that can have a detrimental effect on your customers and business.
Other external threats include Denial of Service (DOS) attacks, ransomware attacks, 3rd party apps, and social engineering, also known as phishing attacks.
Internal Data Threats
Internal threats can come from employee mistakes due to knowledge gaps, or internal malicious attacks. Both of which can be costly to your business. Typically, data threats that occur internally, are unintentional. However, this is the most common form of data loss in business.
Options for Protecting Your Data
Now that you know the risks, you may be wondering what your options are for protecting your company’s data. Since there are several ways to protect your data, it is best to consult with the IT professionals at CMIT Solutions, who can help you implement a backup and disaster recovery plan to ensure your company can avoid data loss and downtime.
At CMIT Solutions, we will work with you to create a business continuity plan that meets the needs of your business at a price that you can afford. We will set up a data protection and recovery plan to protect your data and your business. Pittsburgh business owners can contact CMIT Solution today to learn more.