Stop Assuming Your Cloud Backups Are Safe Source – www.bbc.com Data is the lifeblood of every modern organization. From customer details, to code, APIs, and databases, each team presides over a wealth of information. This data is not only lucrative for your business, but also a shiny target for unscrupulous cybercriminals. The growing threat of data theft, leakage, and ransomware, dictates that up to date data backups are now a necessity. Traditional, on-premises storage is not suitable for many organizations, recently becoming outpaced by cloud-based repositories. There are overwhelming assumptions, however, that data security in cloud infrastructure is simply superior – this is not necessarily the case. Here’s how to juggle security and convenience. Importance of Data Backups Put simply, a backup is an archived copy of important information. It forms the backbone of your organization’s data protection policy, acting as a restorative mechanism in the case of data loss or cyberattack. Data losses take many different forms, and as the owner and guardian of customer data, it is the company’s responsibility to adequately protect such material. Dossiers of illegally gained data are lucrative business for cybercriminals, with large quantities of personally identifiable information (PII) fetching sizable sums on dark web markets. In fact, there’s so much PII – from the non-stop roster of this year’s data breaches, leaks, and attacks – that individual email addresses and usernames go for only a few cents each. Data losses are a risk of doing business and must be recognized as such. Backups are typically stored in a secure location, separate from the organization’s main premises. It may be impossible to control when you’re targeted by cyber criminals, but a reliable backup is one of the most important controls that will prevent long-term post-breach damage. Ransomware attacks are one particularly potent concern – the reality of which continues to hit more companies each year. In 2021 alone, approximately 37% of global organizations claimed they had fallen victim to some form of ransomware attack, according to the IDC Report. When ransomware encrypts its victim’s files, that data is fundamentally irretrievable – even if you pay the ransom, there’s no guarantee the extortion gang will return the decryption key. If this occurs, and your backup is less than a week old, then you are saved from the stress of negotiating with cybercriminals, and your...