Your security stack has several important elements such as a next-generation firewall or endpoint security. When all the others fail, a solid business continuity platform is going to get you back on your feet. Learn the top five reasons why business continuity needs to be in your security stack.
Ransomware is getting worse
Since the appearance of the malware identified as ransomware, the number of variants has grown from 1 to 25+ with 4000+ ransomware attacks happening daily since the beginning of 2016. It has also been discovered that several of these variants are targeting backup data, thereby crippling our ability to recover from an incident. Having a business continuity platform with secure backup and restore capabilities is now more important than ever.
There is one user in every organization that will click on anything (Insider Threat)
Whether employees know it or not, they are the greatest threat to an organization when it comes to information security. Users don’t have to be malicious to be a threat, and in fact, the unknowing employees can be a greater threat in some ways. Firewalls, email scanning, and other protections can only do so much, but all it takes is one trusting user to bypass those controls and cause serious trouble. User training and awareness will mitigate this risk, but even the best can be fooled – we are human after all.
Servers will fail; not if but when
Most businesses today utilize a server of some sort to complete business functions, whether it be a file server for storage or an application server dedicated to running one program. The reality of having a physical server is that the hardware and software will fail at some point, and you do not want your data unprotected when it does. One of the most common physical failures tends to be hard drives, while the most common software failure tends to be operating system corruption. These issues can creep up at random, and rarely with a warning, so a proactive approach is always best.
Nature happens
The year 2017 has seen an unprecedented number of nature-related incidents that kept businesses in-operable for extended periods of time. While it is more likely that you will experience a network security incident than a hurricane or fire, it is still a possibility for which you should plan. Fire, water and electricity can leave a lasting impression on your business so be prepared to work through these times without blinking.
Reputation and trust are hard-earned and quickly lost
When downtime occurs, for whatever reason, it is more important than ever to be back up and running as quickly as possible with Recovery Time and Point Objectives (RTOs and RPOs) as small as possible. This impacts not just your revenue stream but also the confidence and trust you have worked hard to establish with your customer base over the years spent growing your business. If customers aren’t confident you can either protect their data you hold or plan appropriately for times like this, they may question whether to continue doing business with you.
Originally published on 10/23/2017