Backup vying for attention over Easter weekend

Most people will associate this weekend with one of the main moments in the Christian calendar but in between Good Friday and Easter Sunday there is a chance to squeeze in World Backup Day.

Sadly the chance for the channel to use the occasion to talk to customers about disaster recovery and the growing ransomware threats is going to be blunted this year because of the timing but there is still some opportunity to highlight the need to look after data.

According to the organisers of World Backup Day, almost a third of people have never backed up  their data.

“World Backup Day serves as an important reminder to businesses to stop and think about their data backup and recovery posture and ensure they're employing the right data protection plan, processes and solutions across the business. The goal should always be to have the ability to instantly and cost-effectively recover all data across on-premises, virtualized, cloud and hybrid-based systems and applications with zero impact on the end user. If businesses are not meeting this goal, it's time to reassess those plans, processes and solutions -- and there's no better time to start than today," said Adrian Moir, senior consultant, product management at Quest.

With GDPR looming in May there are plenty of reasons to take a closer look at data management and on the back of World Backup Day Acronis has sounded warnings that this year is likely to be the worst for cyber attacks and breaches.

The firm has done some research that found 60% of users had never heard of ransomware despite high profile Petya and WannaCry attacks last year.

That figure is even more disturbing with the expectations that this year is going to be even worse on the ransomware front.

“Ransomware attacks have made headlines over the past year. Yet despite the growing number attacks, the awareness of the problem and the importance of preventing the attacks seem to be slowing down,” said John Zanni, president of Acronis “Awareness to help people realise the importance of securely backing up and protecting data needs to grow."

But backup is not just about fending off ransomware and GDPR continues to remain a mystery to a significant number of customers with just a couple of months to go until the data regulations are introduced.

AvePoint and the CIPL released its 2nd Annual GDPR Readiness report earlier this week and found that over the past 12 months there has not been that much progress.

In last year’s report, 67% of respondents revealed they did not have the processes in place to tag and store data according to GDPR standards and in a year that has only dropped to 60%.

The standout finding was that 60% of survey respondents were still not on top of understanding where the confidential and sensitive data resided in their organisation.

“The report shows that companies are not where they need to be in terms of compliance efforts. GDPR merely exacerbates how much oversight is needed to enforce changes down to the individual level,” said AvePoint chief risk, privacy and information security officer Dana Simberkoff. “The long road ahead is quickly becoming a short path as we approach the May 25, 2018 date. This assessment magnifies areas that need major improvement. Knowing where you are on the GDPR readiness scale is half the battle.”