Why Ignoring Disaster Recovery is Bad for Small Business

More small businesses are moving their data, apps and other digital resources to the cloud. However, considering the rising number of cyber threats directed at cloud use and their potential impact on small companies, putting a solid disaster recovery plan in place should be a critical component of any small business cybersecurity plan.

Experts predict that by 2020, 78% of small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs) will use the cloud to back up their data. Unfortunately, many small businesses don’t realize their use of the cloud entails risk. Case in point; 58% do not have a plan in place to deal with data loss and 60% of companies that experience a loss of data shut down within six months. Here are two more reasons why SMBs can no longer ignore disaster recovery.

There’s Risk in Cloud Adoption

The cloud offers SMBs considerable advantages over on-site networks and storage, including scalability, speed and ease of access. In addition, with the rise of infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS), a growing number of business services are now cloud-based and provide users with automatic cloud-based backup and storage.

Just as on-site servers and hard drives are vulnerable to physical damage and theft, the cloud is not immune to downtime or disruption. For example, Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced a four-hour outage that impacted hundreds of thousands of websites across the U.S. and a Microsoft Azure  disruption prevented customers from provisioning their storage resources. In other cases, cyber criminals are hunting for vulnerabilities in cloud infrastructures that could give them access to corporate data and networks. Considering the speed in which new infrastructure and applications are brought online and scaled to the cloud to meet business demand, cybersecurity teams can’t adequately track of network expansion—this is especially true of SMBs with limited IT resources. This results in a lack of oversight and control—something that’s especially dangerous in a public or hosted cloud environment.

Recovery Requires Planning

The best defense against cloud risk is a robust business continuity/disaster recovery (BDR) plan that minimizes downtime and allows SMBs to continue operations as soon as possible. This should provide for risks to both physical network and cloud infrastructure to minimize the impact to business continuity. Depending on the size of the company, the BDR should include:

  • A risk and impact analysis to determine network vulnerability and potential impact of a disaster on the business.
  • A network analysis to assess and map on-site and cloud-based systems.
  • Backup and recovery location designation, including hard-drive backup systems, remote colocation backups, as well as virtual computers and servers.
  • Automated, high-frequency backups.
  • The creation and implementation of a BDR protocol that details the full BDR strategy, including a realistic disaster recovery plan.
  • Employee education on BDR protocol and disaster recovery plans.

neteffect technologies can help you develop and execute a BDR strategy that meets your needs, whether on premises or as-a-service. As a Fortinet partner, neteffect can deliver the advantages of a security fabric approach for integrated network protection that minimizes the potential for disaster by providing you with end-to-end, consolidated next-generation cybersecurity. Contact us at 704-688-7170 for more information.