Data Backup

Cloud Backup: 4 Ways to Protect Data from Permanent Loss

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Studies show that companies in the US experienced 1,001 data breaches in 2020, affecting 155.8 million individuals. It is also estimated that the average cost of these attacks to businesses was equal to $8.64 million in the same year, even with measures like cloud backup in place.

The bottom line is, if you cannot prevent data loss during a natural disaster or a cyber-attack, your business could be exposed to a financial loss. To make sure that never happens, here are some ways you can prevent data loss altogether.

1. Antivirus & Firewall

Choosing an antivirus and firewall solution is absolutely vital when it comes to securing your company’s sensitive data. Malware and viruses are designed to steal all kinds of information which can result in even bigger data breaches. Make sure your antivirus software and firewall are designed to handle the security requirements, scope, and size of your company. Keep them regularly updated as well.

2. Cloud Backup

Backing up all your data is obviously the frontline defense strategy and cloud backup solutions undoubtedly are the most dependable. They allow you to send a copy of your data to another location so, in the event your data is breached, you can restore it and ensure business continuity. Cloud backup solutions also help defend against crippling IT crises such as data loss, cutting down the downtime.

3. Create a Disaster Recovery Plan

If your employees haven’t been trained properly to handle certain threat situations, a lot can go wrong during an emergency, be it a cyber-attack or a storm. A cloud backup and disaster recovery plan will help your employees take swift action the moment a disastrous event occurs to reduce any data loss.

4. Work With IT Security & Cloud Backup Experts

You can certainly implement most of these strategies on your own, but if you want them done more effectively and efficiently, consider working with a team of certified experts. VPLS has 23+ years of experience in devising security strategies for businesses across the world, including cloud backup support.

From penetration testing to risk auditing, we can help identify vulnerabilities in your existing system and make the necessary changes. Securing your business from all kinds of threats and preventing any potential data theft/loss will be extremely tough to accomplish without experienced IT professionals on your side.

Let VPLS Secure Your Precious Data

Our VPLS data security experts will perform a disaster readiness assessment and implement customized policies to defend your business from data breaches and loss events. If the worst-case scenario comes to pass, we will make sure you are up and running as fast as possible.

When it comes to data security, you cannot afford any uncertainty. VPLS will ensure you are always covered – protected from natural disasters and cyberthreats alike.

Write to us online to schedule a consultation.

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Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery

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Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery

It is a common, but deadly mistake, to use the term Backup (B/U) interchangeably with Disaster Recovery (DR). This misunderstanding could cause any number of data security and data recovery issues that could potentially destroy a company or at least its IT guy. There is an additional concept in the same vein known as Business Continuity (BC) – let’s do a gut check. To start with, a business continuity assessment is a high-level assessment of a company’s IT enterprise and systematically identifying and then eliminating single points of failure (SPOF) – such as a single core-network switch, standalone server, or a single connection to the internet.

When designing a high-availability IT environment, each component in the compute, network and storage areas are designed and implemented with layers of redundancy. The more critical your IT systems (I don’t know of any organizations that haven’t become totally dependent on their IT stuff) the more business continuity needs to be addressed. Backups and disaster recovery plans are subsets of a business continuity plan.

Many people believe that just a backup alone is sufficient to prevent the loss of data in the event of a disaster, however backup is merely one aspect of a business continuity plan. In order to ensure that a backup can be “stood up,” there also needs to be a disaster recovery plan which identifies and provisions the actual hardware and software to run the backup and bring the company’s IT systems back into operation.

What is Backup?

Backup is the process of making copies of files to have a historical record of data as it existed at a certain point in time. The specifications of backups call for the definition of the following:

Retention – the length of time data must be retained
Recovery Time Objective (RTO) – designates the amount of “real time” that can pass before the disruption begins to impact business operations
Recovery Point Objective (RPO) – the variable amount of data that will be lost or will have to be re-entered during an outage

Making backups of files these days is very simple, if the IT is virtualized – it is literally as easy as taking snapshots of files. It is one of the major advantages of virtualization- but that’s a separate discussion. Just because it’s easy to make a backup doesn’t mean recovering data from those backups is easy. “Standing up” a backup requires the ability to restore the backup (snapshot) on a computing platform (hardware and software) capable of duplicating the operational parameters of the existing computing platform with the existing IT infrastructure. It doesn’t sound simple? It’s not – backing up is easy – restoring isn’t. That’s where verification testing comes in. Verify your backups.

But what happens when the whole existing IT infrastructure is gone? That’s a disaster.

What is Disaster Recovery?

Disaster Recovery (DR) is a set of procedures, hardware (computers, network, storage) and software (OS and applications) that allow a company to restore operations in the case of such a disaster.

Darryl Vidal, VPLS’s Director of Operations, stresses the importance that VPLS places in having both backup and disaster recovery. “You have to do both; if you have a backup but no disaster recovery plan, your backup could be sitting in a cloud with no resources to make it operational.” VPLS offers a variety of services to ensure that our customers’ data is secure if a failure, hack, virus. or natural disaster occurs.

Disaster Recovery must be considered in the context of. “what will we do if the data center office burns down?” Any and all types of backups can be rendered useless in the case of some disaster that takes out the whole building. For instance, if the building housing your data center were destroyed, what would be required to bring “critical” systems back online? Finance, manufacturing, email, and database systems would need to be back online first. Is there a complete backup of data, applications, operating systems, that could be brought into production on some standard hardware? Are the backup recovery procedures documented? If not, that really means that in a disaster, your company couldn’t come back up in weeks or even months.

To be clear, backups and disaster recovery is a subset of business continuity planning. BC seeks to identify all likely single-points of failure (SPOF), and implement equipment, processes and procedures to address each one – including backups and DR provisioning.

To begin the business continuity assessment process, take a systematic top-down approach, and review each potential point-of-failure. Then address each according to its level of criticality. Obviously, this means an assessment of criticality comes first. Start with a BC and DR plan. Then create the backup and recovery plan.

The best news is that today, these can be purchases from a Managed Services Provider (MSP) like VPLS. Backup as a Service (BaaS) is the service to have VPLS run your backups on our enterprise infrastructure. Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) adds the extra layer of actual hardware and software infrastructure to “stand up” your backup images in our Data Center infrastructure in the case of an attack, outage, or natural disaster.

Add to that the benefit of procuring BaaS or DRaaS without any capital outlay – a true opportunity to move from a CapEx to an OpEx IT finance model.

Verify Backup and DR Practices

Finally, verification of backup and DR practices are often not performed because of the huge resource draw and potential down-time caused by such an exercise. But, by having these services provide by an Managed Services Provider, DR verification testing should happen at least twice a year, if not quarterly. We don’t need to discuss why it isn’t done – convenience, opportunity, downtime -but the risk of not planning and documenting a full recovery operation only insures that when, or it, this disaster happens, the organization really doesn’t know if the processes and procedures will actually work. A situation best described as untenable.

To learn more about how VPLS can help businesses with business continuity and disaster recovery, visit VPLS Backup Solutions.

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The Important Difference Between Backup and Disaster Recovery

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backup and DraaSIt is a common, but disastrous misconception to think that backup and disaster recovery are the same. This confusion can cause a plethora of data security issues that can potentially hurt the company and damage its brand. Many believe that just a backup alone is enough to prevent data loss in the event of a disaster. However, a backup process is only the beginning stage of a necessary disaster recovery plan. In order to guarantee a business’s data is secured to the fullest, companies need to have a disaster recovery plan in place.

Join VPLS as we delve into what the difference between a Backup and a Disaster Recovery is and why it is extremely necessary to have both for your IT organization.

What is Backup?

Backup is the process of making copies of files as an alternative in case original data is compromised.

What is Disaster Recovery?

Disaster Recovery is a set of procedures designed to protect IT infrastructure in the case of a disaster.

Now that we have identified what each of those procedures consist of, let’s have an expert explain the importance of utilizing both at your tech environment. Darryl Vidal, VPLS’s Director of Operations, shares his input on why it is always best to have both backup and disaster recovery for your company: “You have to do both; if you have a backup but no disaster recovery, your backup could be lost for good [with no way of recovering it].”

We take data loss very seriously here at VPLS, our team has come up with a handful of solutions and services to ensure that our customers’ data is secured even in the most unpredictable worst-case disaster scenarios! The following are some VPLS services designed to help prevent data loss for your IT organization:

VPLS Backup and Replication

Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)

With the help of our business and internal infrastructure, VPLS DRaaS services can gain experience and expertise in real-world situations to create disaster recovery plans for companies of all sizes. VPLS partners with leading software companies who specialize in disaster recovery to provide reliable and quick recovery.

Managed Cloud Backup

VPLS partners with reputable vendors such as Veeam to guarantee our customers reliable Managed Cloud Backup plans. With Veeam Cloud Connect, the need for VPN tunnels is eliminated and users are able to monitor their backups while having full visibility to storage data.

For more information about VPLS’ Backup and DRaaS options and services, please contact us today!

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cyber security truths basics

Truths and Misconceptions of Cybersecurity

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cybersecurity basicsAfraid that your social media accounts, like Facebook or Instagram, might be held hostage by a hacker? Not to worry! VPLS explains how to protect yourself from cyber attacks and hackers.

Stealing Your Private Data is Easy

Hackers are trying to steal private data and perform cyber attacks. Don’t expect to find James Bond behind that computer monitor, lurking from an unsuspecting corner of the web.

In general, hackers are individuals that exploit vulnerabilities and take advantage of unsuspecting members of the public. This might be surprising to learn, but a large amount of the public does not have basic knowledge of the internet and computers.

How Do Cyber Attacks Occur?

The most common methods that hackers use to gain access into personal devices and online accounts are through theft, phishing, and malware. Let’s take a closer look at how these processes unfold.

Stolen passwords can be obtained in various ways and can be used to log into websites you most frequent. Hackers can gain access to your email account, such as Outlook or Gmail.
This sneaky tactic is used to steal your password with your active participation! Hackers will lure you into providing your password through fake emails from your bank or other institutions.

Similiar to phishing, hackers can gain access to your password with your help. But, unlike phishing tactics that lead you to an unsuspecting website, hackers will include an email attachment that comes with hidden ransomware.

Worried About Becoming The Next Victim of a Cyber Attack?

Worried about being the next victim of a cyber attackHere are a few guidelines to follow when wanting to safeguard your online accounts and private data:

As mentioned, hackers exploit vulnerabilities to gain access of account passwords and private data. Regular software updates are one of the most important and simplest ways of protecting yourself from hackers. Nearly all devices that you use on regular basis contain software, such as computers, laptops, mobile phones, tablets, routers, and the list is endless.
Set up automatic download and installation to make the process easier.

STRONG PASSWORDS:
Using the same password for every online account? We’re all guilty of it. Avoid gifting hackers access to all your online accounts by making the passwords harder to crack.

Try using a passphrase instead of a password. For example: My favorite movie is Se7en
See? Passwords don’t have to be hard for you to create!

USE PASSWORD MANAGERS:
Rather than trying to remember every password for every online account you’ve ever created, try using a password manager. These handy tools keep your passwords in one vault and secures them with one master password.

What happens if the master password is stolen or used? It’s happened. Luckily, thanks to various protection methods and encryptions, all passwords were still safe under lock and key. We recommend checking out LastPass or 1Password.

POST WITH CAUTION:
Be careful with what you post on social media sites. Taking pictures of a passport, state ID, or concert ticket and posting them online is enough for some hackers to scrape private information from you, such as an address or date of birth.

Your name, address, and date of birth are enough to open new lines of credit.

Remember the golden rule, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

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VPLS Cloud and Backup Services for Orange County and Los Angeles County

The Importance of Properly Backing Up Your Office 365 Data

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VPLS Cloud and Backup Solutions in Orange County and Los Angeles County

IS YOUR DATA PROTECTED?

 

Fact: Over 50% of data loss is due to users accidentally (or maliciously) deleting essential data.

Over the past year, we’ve seen a great number of businesses switch over to Microsoft Office 365. Afterall, the product reduces the risk of downtime while still providing daily work essentials and documents. And while some basic safety measures may be in place, consumers often forget to include additional services to protect against data loss or data recovery solutions. …

The Importance of Properly Backing Up Your Office 365 DataRead More »

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