With disaster recovery in a constantly changing world of information technology (IT), new network security issues crop up on a daily basis. While your business likely won't be the target of a state-sponsored hacking effort from Russia, any business that relies on IT (or all of them!) to manage their information and data is at risk. And network security issues may not surface on the day they happen. It can sometimes be days or even weeks before you or your IT department catches wind of the breach.
To provide you a better understanding on how common it is for a company to experience a network security issues, here are some interesting and sometimes eye-popping statistics that show just how frequently network security issues arise.
- As of March 2018, 43% of cyber attacks target small businesses.
- 60% of all small businesses that suffer a cyber attack will be out of business within 6 months
- The average cost of a data breach involving theft of assets totaled $879,582 for these small businesses. They spent another $955,429 to restore their business to normal after the attack.
- While many small businesses are concerned about a cyber attack (58% percent), more than half (51%) are not allocating any budget at all to risk mitigation.
With statistics like these, it is astounding that more businesses aren't taking proactive approaches to disaster recovery. Many small businesses think of disasters as floods, fires, tornadoes or hurricanes, and they think "we're good for missing out on those issues." In actuality, a disaster is defined as ANYTHING that causes disruption to your business, and now the odds are not stacked in your small business's favor.
Laptops and PCs age and crash. Networks can be compromised. Employees and users could fall victim to a phishing attack and expose your business to ransomware. Human error remains the top cause of downtime in the workplace.
Let's review some recent research about disaster recovery and consider what this can mean for your business.
One number that immediately stands out is 6%. This is the number of businesses who report they have never experienced downtime. That means that 94% of businesses have, at some point, had some form of downtime.
In the last 12 months, 71% of companies report to having experienced some downtime. What is the cost of that downtime? The answer is different, depending on the size of the business. Larger enterprises estimate a day of downtime could cost over $1M a day; 36% of companies of all sizes estimate downtime costs between $10,000 and $100,000 per day.
Based off of these reported estimates, the cost of one year of data backup and disaster recovery is less than one day of downtime. That is ROI that cannot be beaten. Remember, ROI does not include the peace of mind an owner has knowing that your business can recovery should a disaster strike.
So if this cost of data backup and disaster recovery is so little, why do only 20% of companies currently use a disaster recovery solution that provides continuous data protection? 80% of companies are at a high risk of data loss. However, not every business and every type of information needs continuous data protection. Depending upon the volume of data and systems, this type of protection can be cost-prohibitive for the business. A consultation with your IT department and/or your managed IT services provider can help you determine how frequently it makes sense to back up your data and systems for disaster recovery.
Now that you have a disaster recovery plan in place, it's time to test the systems. But only 13% of companies manage to do a monthly disaster recovery drill, while 31% conduct them a few times a year. Shockingly, 10% of companies admit they have never conducted a disaster recovery drill, leaving their plan as an unknown in terms of effectiveness. Drills can be hard for IT departments in small and medium-sized businesses. These drills take some time, and other tasks of your IT group will surely fall behind. As a consequence, drills aren't completed often enough or at all, and that means the data backup plan you thought was saving your data, might not actually be working at all. With a managed IT services partner, you can have the staff and resources to conduct regular drills and ensure your plan will keep your data safe and secure.
So what's the desired takeaway then? Meet with your IT department and/or your managed IT services provider. Put together a plan based off of your needs to backup your data and systems. Then test the plan and make sure it works as it should. This will provide you with peace of mind that is priceless. Reach out to Fraser today and learn how our managed IT services team can help you be safe and secure.