31 March has been named World Backup Day in hopes of raising awareness of the increasing role that data plays in our everyday lives, and by extension the importance of regular backups.
World Backup Day strives to encourage people to keep other copies of their data somewhere safe, instead of storing it all in one place. Most people backup their important files to either an external hard drive or somewhere on the internet using programmes such as Dropbox or Google Drive.
Almost 30 percent of people have never backed up any of their data. With 100 phones lost or stolen every minute and ten percent of computers infected with viruses every month - backing up data has become a crucial part of a modern life.
Losing files is more common than many people may think. Any instance where you may have lost a phone, camera, tablet or a laptop counts. One small accident, loss or virus could destroy a lot of important files.
There are still lessons to be learned when it comes to data backup, especially with the worldwide ransomware epidemic.
“Ransomware is an epidemic that doesn't seem to be going away any time soon. Attackers are constantly updating their creations, adding functionality and refining their technology, and that's just one powerful – and potentially costly – reason why backups have taken on a new level of importance,” said Rik Ferguson, VP or research at Trend Micro.
Intermedia's CTO Jonathan Levine commented: “Backup has become an increasingly important part of business continuity plans over the years. Traditional backup solutions, however, can present a problem because they don't backup files in real time. This issue is even more critical with the emergence of ransomware that threatens to take entire businesses offline for extended periods of time. Any company that hasn't incorporated off-site, real-time cloud backup with point in time recovery and instant file access into its continuity plans is likely to suffer significant downtime at a huge financial cost if targeted by such emerging malware. World Backup Day is an opportunity to educate businesses about the importance of backup and provide basic prevention and containment techniques to avoid downtime in the increasingly likely event that a ransomware attack occurs.”