4 Data Protection Tips To Consider in 2023

When it comes to avoiding data disasters, every IT team should do more to ensure more effective data resilience, data protection, and disaster recovery in 2023.

Consider the following four tips:

1. Educate, Educate, Educate

According to Verizon’s 2022 Data Breach Investigations Report, 82 percent of breaches involved the human element, which included social attacks, errors, and misuse. The analysis also discovered that ransomware attacks climbed more in the study year than in the prior five years combined. In addition, while slightly out of date, Cisco’s 2021 Cybersecurity Threat Trends research discovered that 70% of businesses had users that were served malicious browser advertising.

These figures show that your employees are your first line of defence in creating a more resilient business. If you already have an ongoing cybersecurity training plan, you receive a big thumbs up. The start of the new year is an excellent time to review and update it. If you don’t already have a training regimen, now is the time to start one.

These services are available from a variety of managed service providers and consulting firms. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) STOP RANSOMWARE website also has a multitude of ransomware prevention and cybersecurity training materials for technical and non-technical audiences, including managers, business leaders, and technical specialists. Whatever method you take, make sure your employees can detect a scam and know what to do if one occurs.

2. Test and update your disaster recovery plan

Assume your disaster recovery strategy is out of date and hasn’t been tested in a while. If a ransomware attack or data breach compromises your systems, part or all of your data may become unrecoverable. So, get out your strategy and double-check that it satisfies your needs now and in the future. The MSP Disaster Recovery Plan is a great source of additional information. Test it after it has been updated. Then, establish a schedule for revisiting the plan on a regular basis, testing it again, and confirming that it continues to satisfy your needs.

3. Strengthen Your Cybersecurity Defenses

Every day, the AV-TEST Institute registers around 450,000 new malware and potentially undesirable apps (PUAs). According to SonicWall’s 2022 Global Cyberattack Trends, its customers encountered 3 trillion intrusion attempts, 57 million IoT malware attacks, and 4.8 million encrypted threats between January and June of 2022. That’s a significant number of threats! At the same time, the (ISC)2 Cybersecurity Workforce Study discovered a global cybersecurity workforce shortfall of 3.4 million employees.

With that in mind, now is the moment for every business to enhance its investments in cybersecurity experts and cutting-edge preventative solutions. Difficulties in hiring internal IT teams can be overcome by enlisting the assistance of outside partners. Many service providers, value-added resellers (VARs), and system integrators can offer expert advice, continuing services, and support to ensure that your defences are effective and up to date.

4. Emphasize Data Resilience

A “non-vendor” resilient data system can continue to operate when faced with adversity that could otherwise impair its availability, capacity, interoperability, performance, dependability, robustness, safety, security, and usability, according to The Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA). Data resilience is data risk management.

As previously said, achieving data resilience necessitates expenditures that, hopefully, reduce those risks through activities and technologies. It also mandates solutions that provide rock-solid data protection, including immutable backups, and ensure you can recover fast in the event of a disaster or unexpected downtime.

The reality is that protecting data in cyberspace can be difficult. Begin the new year by addressing these four issues and making your company more robust in 2023.