Reports of malicious software and hackers are everywhere these days. In the past two weeks alone, Top of FormLapCorp, one of the largest medical diagnostics companies in the US, disclosed it was hit by a ransomware attack. Singapore’s government health database was attacked, with 1.5 million people impacted with the information theft.

Businesses have a lot more to lose than just data or money during an attack.

• More than half of all businesses that are victims of a cyberattack or data breach are subsequently subject to public scrutiny and suffer losses in brand reputation, customer loyalty, and customer trust.
• 29 percent of businesses that are victims of attacks lose revenue, and nearly 40 percent of those businesses lose more than 20 percent of total revenues.
• Among companies that suffer attacks or breaches, nearly a quarter of them lose significant business opportunities following the data-loss event.

Attacks from cybercriminals are not the only challenge businesses face. Natural disasters, even man-made ones, can cripple a business. You add the regulatory demands from countries, states and local authorities, such as GDPR, and the web of concerns grows more complicated.

Businesses face conventional physical threats to data faces daily, including fires and floods. It’s currently hurricane season for the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean: let’s not forget this natural disaster can wipe out all the data in your location and make recovery virtually impossible. If you don’t have multiple backups available, the simple theft of a hard drive or storage device could easily result in significant data loss.

European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect May 25, 2018. California recently passed a consumer data privacy law that will force significant changes. These are just two examples of the regulatory nightmare that businesses face every day.

With these types of threats, it is not a matter of if your business will become a victim, but when. Anti-malware and anti-virus software can help. Still, even with updated security software, most businesses remain exposed to the threat of data loss due to hackers, malware, and ransomware.

What can be done?

Backup your business. Keeping a backup of important business files and data is essential for several important reasons – not the least of which is making sure you have a safe, secure version that you can use to recover from after a disaster.

Virtually all computer and technology experts will tell you that any backup is better than none at all. Nevertheless, not all backup solutions are the same; nor do they all offer the same levels of protection. One key distinction is ensuring the backup solution fights ransomware attacks with AI-based ransomware protection. Acronis Active Protection is an advanced technology that uses sophisticated analysis to monitor and stop erratic processes on your system. If ransomware somehow manages to get through your anti-virus and starts to encrypt files, Acronis Active Protection will detect the encryption and immediately halt it – automatically restoring the files to the most recently backed up version. Acronis Active Protection stopped over 200,000 attacks last year alone.

In addition, it is best to safeguard your data using the 3-2-1 rule, which states:

1. Keep at least three (3) copies of your data (so no single event will destroy all copies)
2. Store the data in at least two (2) different formats (i.e. disk, tape, cloud, etc.)
3. Keep one (1) copy off-site to protect against fire, flood, theft, and other physical disasters.

Lifeboat offers the full range of Acronis’ award-winning cyber protection solutions and local support to its network. These solutions can provide a comprehensive cyber protection strategy to help protect your business and its most valuable asset – the data.

Contact us today to learn more!