In today’s fast-paced business landscape, losing access to data for even an hour can devastate any organization. Losing data forever is an even worse fate to contemplate.

The loss of crucial data can result in a significant loss of revenue, customer dissatisfaction, loss of trust and long-term reputational damage. Businesses need to have effective measures in place to safeguard their data.

According to cybersecurity experts, two of the most common strategies used to protect data are backups and redundancy. While both methods have been designed to prevent data loss, they differ in their approach. Today, we’ll explore the difference between backups and redundancy and explain why your business needs both to ensure ongoing data protection and continuity.

The Differences Between Backups and Redundancy

Backups and redundancy are two distinct strategies that businesses employ to safeguard their data.

  • Redundancy is essentially the duplication of data. It exists to safeguard against failures that are typically the result of innocuous, ordinary technical issues. For example – if your business uses a service like OneDrive or Google Drive, you’re already using a form of redundancy.

While backups aim to restore data whole-cloth, redundancy seeks to prevent any downtime or disruption in operations.

  • Backups refer to creating a copy of data, either on-premises or offsite, to restore in the event of data loss or corruption. Backups are typically scheduled at regular intervals, such as daily, weekly or monthly, and can be automated. To work correctly, backups need to be in a second location from where you typically keep the rest of your data.

Too many businesses and even IT services professionals see their cloud as a backup, but it’s not doing that if it’s attached to the same system as your primary data.

Why Your Organization Needs Both for Optimal Cybersecurity Risk Management

To ensure optimal cybersecurity risk management, your organization must prioritize both backups and redundancy.

Redundancy ensures that critical data can be recovered in case of data loss or corruption due to human error or technical issues. However, redundancy alone may not be sufficient in a situation that involves a data breach or other malicious event, which can create cascading problems during a compromise.

Fact: Cybercriminals lurk in your system for months before attacking

Recently, the Tech Squared team helped a healthcare client of ours that had been breached. Once we got involved, we discovered the attacker had been lurking in their system for six months.

While they had a backup inside Microsoft 365, the backup was connected to their central system. This meant that the intruder had access to it as well. The intruder was able to completely delete the backup and it could not be recovered.

After we restored as much of their data as possible, we helped them set up a secure backup that was completely separate from the rest of their system. This helped ensure that if they were to be targeted again, they would be less vulnerable.

By implementing both backups and redundancy, businesses can ensure that they are well-prepared for any event and can continue their operations with minimal disruption in case of a cyberattack or system failure. While the cost of implementing both backups and redundancy may be higher, the benefits of ensuring business continuity and preventing data loss are well worth the investment in the long run.

Tech Squared Offers IT Support for Both Backups and Redundancy

The Tech Squared approach to cybersecurity balances the use of both redundancy and backups. Together, we believe these two safety measures will help provide your company with peace of mind, knowing that your data can recovered in the event of a technical issue or even a breach.

Our strategic approach includes the setup and configuration of these critical IT support systems, as well as proactive testing and monitoring to ensure they continue working as we expect.

Our Nashville cybersecurity experts are committed to ensuring that our work provides stress-free cybersecurity risk management, keeping your organization cybersecure and on track to meet future growth goals.

Book a No-Obligation Consultation with Tech Squared Today

Want to learn more about our cybersecurity approach? Book a consultation with us today.