This is a short list of natural disasters that damaged businesses in 2017:
- Hurricane Maria – This Hurricane devastated the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, virtually wiping out many businesses. It caused billions of dollars in infrastructure damage that will take years to repair.
- Earthquake in Mexico City – A magnitude 7.1 earthquake shattered Mexico City, killing more than 200 people and causing many businesses lost productivity, business and data.
- Hurricane Irma – This powerful Hurricane caused widespread destruction and damaged or destroyed businesses from the Caribbean through Florida and beyond.
- Hurricane Harvey – One of the most powerful and damaging Hurricanes to hit the mainland U.S. in 50 years. Businesses in impacted regions were damaged or destroyed, data lost and productivity was completely halted for days, weeks or even months.
But as hard as these hit business they are not the most common cause of data loss.
According to recent information from the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office your own employees are the greatest cause of data loss.
Don’t believe it?
The recent false alarm in Hawaii, when an alert was sent out telling the people of Hawaii to find shelter as there was an hostile ballistic missile attack. This is a classic example of a worker who ‘pressed the wrong button’ and the resulting chaos it caused.
How much easier could it be for human error at your business to cause data loss that damages your business?
According to the UK Information Commissioner’s office, human error was responsible for almost two-thirds (62 percent) of the incidents reported to the ICO. This was much greater than other causes, like insecure web pages and hacking, which were a distant 9 percent combined.
Employees can cause data loss for a variety of reasons. Some of the top reasons include:
- Human error – accidental deletion of data or other errors causing data loss
- Exiting the firm – taking knowledge or access to data with them
- Malicious intent – purposefully deleting or damaging data
- Non-compliance – lost data due to not following proper data access/storage process or procedure
Data backup is critical because disasters, both human and natural, happen. It’s a fact of life. And when they happen, your data can get lost. Permanently.
Ensuring your business can survive the data loss caused by disasters is a function of using powerful, secure and easy-to-use data backup and recovery.
To find out more about how Blue Sky can help you protect your data and implement a robust data back up and retrieval protocols, email [email protected] or call us on 0207 183 5854
Blue Sky Infrastructure Engineer