Every series business owner online understands the need for website back-ups as a line of defense in their internet security detail. However, sometimes, like those coffee and anxiety-fueled panics we experienced during University to complete assignments for a looming deadline, we forget to back up our work. Only to lose our entire document hours before class. A case study published by Acronis about the power of its cloud based backup solution outlines the tipping point that leads a company to understand the importance of choosing a powerful backup solution laced with top security software.
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Case Overview
In this case, not having a trusted backup solution that also comes ungirded by its own security can mean more than missing an important deadline. It can spell disaster for your company, and a financial fallout you may not be prepared for.
Johnson’s Electric in the United States learned this lesson the hard way. It was hit with a cyber-attack that its security software was unable to detect. This titan of a company experienced 4 relentless ransomware attacks in succession. The final blow via email phishing. To add insult to injury the antivirus software they had installed for security purposes failed them, unable to detect the cyber attach until the damage was already done.
The damage totalled in over 200 users’ company-wide being affected, 8 hours of downtime, and over 3 terabytes of data being corrupted. As such, much of the data recovery was made via local USB hard drives, due to the ineffectiveness of its backup solution. The total downtime after all 4 attacks amounted to 30 hours.
But this cyber crisis was a hard-learned lesson for Johnson’s Electric and like the loss of your work hours before a deadline in University, it taught them a valuable lesson about choosing the right backup solution.
The Importance of Having a Robust Backup Solution
Cyber criminals deploy software daily that scans thousands of websites for security weak spots. Beyond tech-savvy criminals and hackers, it was becoming increasingly easy for normal people to purchase software to launch cyber-attacks. That means your competition can knock you right out of the game if you’re defenses are low.
This is big business for money hungry cyber criminals that can worm their way through weak security points, steal your data to ransom back to you for or price of destroying your website. Without an adequate backup solution in place, you can lose tons of crucial data and revenue from extended amounts of downtime.
What’s more, is cyber-attacks can wound your business’ reputation deeply and destroy the trust you’ve spent time building with your customer base. Even if your website is powered by WordPress and you’ve installed a myriad of plugins to help mitigate your backups and overall site security it might not be enough. If a titan of a company like Johnson’s Electric could have their cyber security infiltrated imagine yours.
Ways You Can Create Backups
You can Use a Cloud Based Backup
This is the best way to back up your website. Nowadays, it is not advisable to store copies of your website, customer and company data on external hard drives. These can be stolen or connected to computers on the same network. In the event of a cyber-attack, your backup can become infected. Thus, destroying any hope of restoring your website to its most recent setting.
A good cloud-based backup solution typically lets you set multiple backups at the intervals that you want. And while cyber criminals have evolved their tactics to attack cloud-based systems you need a robust and feature-rich cloud backup that keeps its own security as a priority. Like Acronis cloud-based backup.
Backup a WordPress Site with a Plugin
If you use WordPress as your CMS like millions of other users then you can easily create backups of your site using a specific Plugin. Plugins like UpdraftPlus create backups of your site. Though plugins can pose a security risk if they are not updated regularly giving cybercriminals and hackers a foothold.
Backing up through your Web Host
Discussing backup solutions with your host is a must. A good host will have backup options that suit your budget and your website’s needs. What’s more, is they can manage the backups for you so you don’t have to. You want a frequency of daily backups, especially if you update content on your website daily or tend to collect customer data and all hours of the day.
Acronis Cloud Based Backup Case Study: Johnson’s Electric
After licking its wounds from 4 successive cyber-attacks Johnson’s Electric began the search for a new heavy-duty backup solution. They wanted to ensure that what happened to them, would never happen again. In stepped Acronis with secured and highly configurable cloud-based backup solution.
Johnson’s Electric had a few stipulations for their new backup system. They wanted a solution that included a complete system backup, was easy to use, had the ability to scale, and flexible storage support. While those features were easy enough to fulfil, Johnson’s Electric demanded a bit more from Acronis:
They needed a bare-metal data protection solution to safeguard its data from natural disasters like fire or flood and hardware failures. Plus, Johnson Electric wanted to tackle a more global protection policy. This would cover authenticity, security, and making data tamper-proof with the aid of blockchain technology.
In the end, Johnson’s Electric began using Acronis Cloud-based Backup with data uploaded to 6 sites across America. In opted for backup that protected multiple physical endpoints, in fact up to 20 with the addition of virtual protection. This takes place over multiple locations simultaneously with the capacity of 20 TB of data. This translates to a lot of data backed up and stored daily.
What’s more, Acronis cloud backups only take 2 hours because of their high data speeds. While it requires up to 5 hours for physical backups. Additionally, Acronis Active Protection has successfully thwarted any ransomware attacks or other attempts by cybercriminals. With a boast of employing the strongest in cybersecurity on the market Acronis is easily the best in backup solutions.
What to look for in Your Back up Solution
Let Johnson’s Electric be a cautionary tale and learn from their experience. If you’re not using the utmost in back up protection or if your backup solution doesn’t tick all of these features then it is time to contact your hosting provider and discuss switching to Acronis Cloud-Based backup today.
- Data Recovery: Complete, reliable bare-metal recovery
- Automation: Automated backup on-site and off-site
- Built-in Security: Artificial intelligence-based defense against ransomware
- Scalability: Ability to implement future blockchain strategy
Summary
No matter how you slice it, your website requires the optimum internet security and backup solution on the market. While plugins can be an accessory to your WordPress site they simply are not enough. Especially if you run a serious business online. You need a backup solution that is fortified with its own security system and one that is robust and feature-rich. At hosting.co.uk, we take website backup and overall security seriously. That’s why we provide the best cloud based backup solution to our clients.
