The impact of climate change is being felt globally. Our summers appear to be getting hotter, our winters are volatile, and all the weather in between is getting more extreme. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) predicts that as global temperatures continue to rise, the likelihood of increased drought and intense storms will continue to grow.

Warmer oceans fuel higher wind speeds, increasing the likelihood of tropical storms and hurricanes. In addition, rising sea levels increase the danger of storm surges and extreme weather, threatening to damage the infrastructure that impacts our daily lives. With this increased risk to IT infrastructure, join us as we look at how climate change influences business decision-making surrounding the importance of disaster recovery and business continuity.

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Disaster recovery and business continuity are key business strategies designed to protect critical data and ensure vital IT operations are kept running in a disaster scenario. The recent conflict in Ukraine has brought war to Europe’s borders for the first time since 1945.

The conflict has reminded everyone that disaster can strike when you least expect it. Nobody thought Russia would start a war, but the last five months have been a stark reminder that unexpected events can happen at any time. (more…)

The 3-2-1 Backup strategy provides the best starting place for businesses and users in need of a serious data backup solution. The easy way to remember this approach is:

• Two onsite copies of data (the original and the backup).
• One offsite copy, either in an alternative location or offloaded to tape.
• Backup data SHOULD always be encrypted.

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The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and its subsequent amendments were enacted into law to protect patient healthcare data, also known as Protected Health Information (PHI); HIPAA protections also apply to Electronic Health Records (EHR) – PHI stored on computers. Managed service providers who maintain HIPAA compliance must adhere to several stringent regulations which are designed to limit the exposure of confidential or sensitive patient information from unauthorized access.

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To comply with HIPAA, healthcare companies and their business associates must formulate a robust contingency plan in case of an event that disrupts operations. These plans have smaller component plans such as a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) and an Emergency Operations Mode Plan. This business continuity strategy requires healthcare organizations to be capable of recovering critical IT systems that handle Electronic Patient Health Information (ePHI) into a disaster recovery location while ensuring critical business functions continue in the event of a crisis. (more…)

A viable, proven and tested business continuity plan is essential for any modern professional organization. Two key elements make up a good business continuity plan, they are: have a robust and reliable backup solution and have the ability to invoke a disaster recovery solution in the event that the worst happens to critical IT systems. (more…)

You may see natural disasters on TV or read about them but not completely understand the vulnerability associated with this issue. Actually, the risk is almost throughout the industry.

More than half of organizations (58%) are not ready for a major loss of data. Actually, the extent to which firms are unprepared is very worrisome: 60% will go bankrupt within 6 months, according to data from Washington, DC-based research firm Clutch. Also according to the statistics compiled by Clutch, cloud backup is on the rise, with:

• 84% of the organizations that have already adopted cloud backup having implemented both on-premises and cloud backups;
• 68% of cloud backup business customers testing their backups at least once per month; and
• 78% of small businesses planning to use cloud-hosted backup by 2020.

To set aside the specific technology of cloud backup, the need for disaster recovery is clear from the data on the business impact of large data losses. Since it is possible to have a disaster completely take you by surprise, and to in turn lose thousands or millions operationally and economically, it is a basic business need to have a disaster recovery plan implemented. (more…)

There’s nothing more valuable in an organization’s war chest than its data. Both present and future business decisions are increasingly determined by data analytics. With data so valuable, it must be protected at all costs, which is why backup testing is such a pivotal process for any business. (more…)

All businesses should have a business continuity plan (BCP), especially companies that rely on IT infrastructure to support or operate their business model. A business continuity plan is a predefined business process created to document and demonstrate the planning undertaken to prevent a disaster scenario occurring.  The BCP also documents and demonstrates the process of how a business will recover from a declared disaster scenario. The disaster could be caused by any number of scenarios; typical causes may be user error, hardware failure or a natural disaster. (more…)

Target Audience

This article is aimed at non-expert computer users (without a background in network or systems administration).

Introduction

DDoS stands for “Distributed Denial of Service” and, naturally enough, is a type of Denial of Service (DoS) attack. The basic aim of a DoS attack is to render a virtual private server, PC or network resource inaccessible or unusable–denying service to anyone trying to access it. It is a malicious attack designed to cause maximum inconvenience.

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