Can backups protect you from Ransomware?

Ransomware is on the increase with new organisations falling victim every 14 seconds! It makes sense, therefore, to expect that you’re going to be attacked and to plan for it. Obviously good patch management and user training are key to prevention, but there is still a chance you will become a victim of cybercrime. This is where backups of your data could just save your business from collapse. But there are things you need to understand about backups and backing up your data.

The Cloud is not a backup

Many people believe that because they are running their business applications in the Cloud it’s backed up. They’re not, as Musey Inc recently discovered when they accidentally deleted their entire G Suite domain.

Backup engineers

Let’s face it, backing up is boring and is often given to the new kid in IT. But back up systems generally, have the highest privilege system accounts within a business. If your back up systems aren’t correctly managed they themselves can become a huge vulnerability.

Pay attention to your backups

We all hope that we never have to implement our business continuity plan, and as such, they are often forgotten. Add to that our junior IT staff managing them, and we can easily find ourselves with an untested and outdated backup of our data. Even if you’re using a 3rd party to back up your data, make sure you test that it’s working and you know what to do with the data once it’s restored.

If you’re backing up Google G Suite, make sure you understand that most backup solutions will have to convert your Google Docs, Sheets and Presentations to Microsoft Office, or OpenDocument in order to store them externally. If you restore these files you may find that some of the data has been lost during the conversion process.

With ransomware in the news almost every day and many companies becoming victims, it’s critical that your backup strategies as seen as critical within your business without creating other issues.