Why it’s right to be uneasy about your ability to recover from a disaster

In business, data is our record of reality. We capture what we know of our reality as accurately as possible and keep its integrity intact so that we can create and deliver the products and services that our customers want and need.

Given the importance of data, it’s quite surprising to note that three out of four small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) do not have a plan for recovering data in the event of a natural or man-made disaster.

Think about it: Will your business survive without a disaster recovery plan (DRP) if your customer records are lost to a fire? Out of sheer self-belief, you might say yes, but did you know that among firms without a DRP that suffer a major data loss event, 93% are out of business within one year?

It pays to be armed with facts. Here are some more to help you increase your awareness of the value of a DRP.

Related article: Every business needs a disaster recovery plan

Natural calamities

• Up to 60% of firms of all sizes shut down operations within a year of suffering a natural disaster. Failure is often attributed to too much lost data, too much downtime, and the inability to resume communications. In fact, 9 out of 10 SMBs close up shop within one year if they fail to resume operations within five days after being hit by a natural calamity.
• After Hurricane Sandy hit the American East Coast in 2012, only 22% of a 2013 SMB survey respondents claimed that they had the capability to handle another storm. Nearly a third of them admitted to being unable to recover any lost data, while those who said they could would take an average of 16 days to do so. Back in 2013, an SMB could lose an average of nearly $3,000 per day to non-productivity.

Cyberattacks

• 67% of respondents to a 2018 SMB cybersecurity survey stated that they experienced a cyberattack.
• Businesses lose an average of over $100,000 for every ransomware incident because of downtime and recovery costs.
• Among companies with a DRP, 96% were able to recover from ransomware attacks.

Related article: 5 components in every successful recovery plan

Human error

• A survey that looked at 6.2 billion files found that approximately 20% of such files — some of which contained financial and health information — were completely accessible online by anyone around the world. In other words, an end user forgot to limit access rights to these files.
• Among 1,000 employees that participated in a survey by IT services provider Clutch, only 52% go through cybersecurity policy training once annually.
• 52% of cybersecurity breaches stem from human errors such as failure to follow policies and procedures, carelessness, and lack of expertise with software and websites.
• One in three Americans open phishing emails.

Related article: Disaster Recovery myths that are bad for business

Vulnerabilities in advanced tech

• 95% of data breaches from the cloud will be caused by end users, most likely because they’ll neglect to properly use the security controls available to them.
• Cryptojacking — the hijacking of computers to gain processing power for mining cryptocurrencies — increased by 8,000%.
• With the number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices (such as smart speakers and the security cameras you installed around your premises) to reach 3 billion by 2020, these gadgets are poised to be used more by hackers to steal sensitive information and hijack IT systems. This is because these readily connect to the internet and yet are so quickly dropped when it comes to security updates because their creators are focused on developing the next big thing in IoT.

If you believe that the success of your business could depend on its ability to recover after data loss, then don’t be a statistic — protect it from catastrophic data loss events. Contact our experts at XBASE Technologies to begin the Disaster Recovery Planning process today.