3 Reasons Why You Need a Disaster Recovery Plan
If a disaster were to occur tomorrow, would your business be able to recover? If you don’t have a disaster recovery plan, you may not have an option. According to the latest MSP threat guide by ConnectWise, two out of three SMBs have suffered a ransomware attack in the last 18 months. With a reliable disaster recovery plan, your business is prepared for anything, including cyberattacks.
We all know how important data is to modern businesses. It’s the lifeblood of every organization. That’s why you should know about the potential scenarios that could seriously impact your data – and your business. Here are three of the most common disasters that impact organizations.
Potential Disasters That Can Impact Your Business
1. Natural Disasters
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. experienced 20 natural disasters, such as floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes in 2021 costing over $145 billion. These storms can ruin your office in seconds, taking away all your vital equipment, including hard drives and onsite servers.
There’s only so much you can do to prep for a natural disaster. If a hurricane or tornado comes through your area, your options are limited. With that said, a data backup and recovery plan can at least ensure that your data is secure and accessible in the event of a natural disaster. An IT expert can migrate, replicate and store your data at an offsite location – ensuring you always have a backup plan.
2. Cyberattacks
Second on this list is the cyberattack. We mentioned in our introduction the threat that ransomware can have on your business. Unfortunately, that is just one example of a cyberthreat. Every 39 seconds, someone is being impacted by a cyberattack and only 40% of businesses can get back running after one. These attacks are occurring at an alarming rate and can get costly extremely fast. IBM found that the average cost of a data breach in 2021 was over $4.2 million.
There are many things you can do to keep your business safe from cyberattacks. For starters, make sure your business is equipped with the best cybersecurity in order to keep your network safe. It’s also important that you and your team are aware of the signs of a cyberattack and what to watch out for when it comes to emails or unknown attachments. An IT partner can evaluate your entire infrastructure, identify vulnerabilities and address them for you. Whether it’s firewalls, 24/7 monitoring, threat detection or SOC as a service, there’s many cybersecurity services and best practices to implement to keep your business safe from cyberattacks.
3. Power Outages
The third disaster that can impact your business is a power outage. It’s a no-brainer that we need electricity for our businesses to run. So, if your business experiences a power outage, what happens? The answer is downtime – something we all want to avoid. According to Gartner, the average cost of IT downtime is $5,600 a minute. So, imagine having a power outage for a few hours or days – the cost can easily climb into the six-figure range quickly.
Power outages are more costly than just the time offline. Without the proper steps in place, a power outage can lead to lost data. One of the main benefits of a cloud backup and recovery plan is that it keeps your data in a centralized location that can be accessed from anywhere. Whether it’s power outages, hybrid work or any other scenario, your data is always within reach when it’s secure in a cloud environment.
Conclusion
Do you know what these three disasters have in common? They’re unpredictable and costly. And while we can’t always predict when the next disaster may occur, what everyone can do is create a disaster recovery plan to stay prepared.
A disaster recovery plan can help your business stay running and keep your data safe and secure. Whether it’s a storm or a cyberattack, a good plan can make sure your business doesn’t fall to a disaster. At Sentry IT Solutions, we’re here to help you create a backup plan to ensure your success.
If you’re looking for more cyber tips, please feel free to check out more of our blogs.
How to Create a Disaster Recovery Plan
Your data is the most important asset your organization has. But no matter how hard you try to protect it, disasters happen. If you’re not prepared to handle these situations, you could lose more than your data – you could lose your entire business. In fact, around half of businesses never reopen after a cyberattack, so having a disaster recovery plan is critical.
The reality is disasters can be unpredictable. From natural disasters to cyberattacks, no one can predict when their business will experience an incident. That’s why it’s so important that you have a disaster recovery plan in place for the unknown. Here are five things to consider when creating an effective disaster recovery plan.
5 Things to Consider When Building Your Disaster Recovery Plan
1. Get Prepared
A great first step to a data recovery plan is to identify the assets your business uses, such as hardware and network configurations, and determine how each one is crucial to the way your business functions. If you find old files or computers that no one uses anymore, it’s time to safely move on from these things. After you create an asset breakdown list, the next step is to consider who should orchestrate your disaster recovery plan. It’s a good idea to outsource this plan to a trusted expert.
2. Focus on Prevention
In order to develop a great disaster recovery strategy, you first need to do your best to protect your infrastructure. Start with basic security tools that help protect your business, such as VPNs and firewalls. Then institute processes that strengthen security like password managers, software patching and access control to limit who can view your sensitive data. Lastly, implement cybersecurity policies and offer education training to ensure everyone is on the same page.
3. Identify the Primary Threats
Although you can’t predict every disaster, you can identify your most significant threats and develop a plan around any potential issue you could experience with this threat. After you identify the primary risks, ask yourself the following questions:
- What would the consequences be if this threat was impacted?
- Would it affect my company financially?
- Would there be legal consequences?
- Would it impact my reputation?
Once you identify the potential threats and the possible fallout; you will be able to know what’s at stake and the priority level of each threat.
4. Create a Communications Strategy
Every member of your organization has a role to play during a time of crisis. A communications strategy helps assign specific people in different departments these responsibilities. For example, who on your team will communicate actionable items to key stakeholders? Who will coordinate the recovery plan on the ground level? The last thing your team needs during a data breach or power outage is to wonder who oversees what, so you need to layout clear expectations and roles well before anything goes wrong.
5. Test Your Disaster Recovery Plan & Review the Results
After your communications strategy, there are several other action items you will need to create in your response plan. But once your disaster recovery plan is put together, it’s time to put it to the test. If you work with an IT company, we recommend having an expert in simulations test your system. This can be a great way to see how your employees would react in alternate situations. Testing your plan will show you its functionality and reveal any gaps you have. If any gaps are discovered, go back and revise any flaws to make sure your plan is strong and secure.
When you put a solid disaster recovery plan in place, you can rest knowing that your business is protected and will stay open in the event of a disaster. The best plan will ensure that your data stays protected, no matter what happens. Your business data is important, so make sure you’re doing all you can to keep it guarded.
Developing a disaster recovery plan can be extremely difficult and take time away from your priorities. Let us handle your IT needs so you can focus on what matters – your business growth. At Sentry in Orlando, our experts are ready to help you develop a plan to keep your business data safe and backed up.
If you want to know more about data backup and other cyber tips, contact our team!