How to disaster proof your network
In the wake of highly publicised cyber security hacks, making sure your network stays safe has never been more important. From hackers trying to get their hands on your data to natural disasters destroying your servers, there are a number of risks to think about.
Every day, hackers armed with ransomware will try to sneak into your network, continuously trying to poke a hole in your defences – you have to stay one step ahead of them. Apart from setting up high-level cyber security systems, there are a few things you can do.
1. Update continuously
The major attack of 2017 was called ‘WannaCry’. It took advantage of a small loophole in Windows that had already been fixed in an update a few months ago. Those companies that didn’t take the time to update, were hit by the software and had to pay up. The motto of the story: always update your machines.
2. Educating your employees
One of the best ways to prevent ransomware is to educate your employees about the risks involved in clicking unknown links. No one should ever click on a link that has a dubious source. Downloading unknown images and opening .exe files should be avoided at all costs too.
3. Redundancy
Redundancy is a term often thrown around by IT specialists. It is what will save your network from a natural disaster, power failure, or drive failure. The term includes various systems like physical backups, cloud backups, and server configuration. Redundancy will help you when you need to do a disaster recovery or when something goes horribly wrong.
RAID server management
A RAID is the configuration of drives within a server or computer. If one or two drives should fail, the system should have backups of all your data. You’ll be able to replace the drives and continue working as nothing ever happened.
Physical backups
You can choose to backup your most sensitive information to good old tape. These tape archives will be slow to recover and should be kept off-site in a locked safe. If something happens to your network, you can retrieve the data in a few days and carry on working.
Cloud/offsite backups
By far the most popular option when looking at storing your backups. If your internet can support a high-speed backup, then your backups can be sent overnight to a cloud server. This means even if your office and your tape archives are somehow destroyed, your cloud backups will still be accessible.
It’s difficult to disaster proof your network, and preventing cyber attacks and possible destruction of your servers can be difficult for the average IT team to manage. If you are confused about how disaster recovery works or need some help understanding the principles behind cloud backups, our team will be happy to chat. Hand it over to us, and we will keep your IT department working like clockwork.
