The only weapon to safeguard businesses from ransomware attacks is to back up their important data. — Pexels.com pic
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 27 — Ransomware attacks have been a major security challenge for businesses and government organisations in recent years.
With evolving trends, perpetrators now pose a sinister threat as attacks become more complex and potentially expensive for victims.
For the uninitiated, ransomware is a form of malware that encodes a victim’s files.
The culprit will then demand a ransom from the victim to restore access to the data upon payment.
The only weapon to safeguard businesses from ransomware attacks is to back up their important data.
However, many SMBs find it challenging to do so.
Here’s Malay Mail‘s low-down of three major data backup-related issues and how SMBs can effectively gain an upper hand over them.
Lack of a centralised management system may slow down the access speed and effectiveness. — Pexels.com pic
1. Lack of a centralised management system
These days, business data is scattered across multiple platforms and devices, from servers to virtual machines, personal computers, and cloud applications like Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.
For IT and data managers, this presents several conundrums.
To ensure that your data is secure, every device and platform needs to be backed up.
However, since all those different platforms might be compatible with specific backup solutions, IT staff might be forced to integrate multiple products from separate vendors, which leads to greater complexity — surveying each one’s limitations, learning how to use their products, and contacting different teams for technical support.
Therefore, SMBs may opt for centralised data management solutions under consideration when looking for a backup solution.
Data storage and backup efficiency are the two most challenging tasks for most SMBs if they are not equipped with the right tools. — Pexels.com pic
2. Lack of storage scalability for ever-growing data
As data volume continues to grow, the storage capacity and the backup efficiency will eventually become a challenging task for SMBs if they don’t use standard tools and methods.
Unfortunately, many SMBs neglect the importance of an effective backup solution in their priorities, not realising that any risk of data loss may eventually cost their entire business.
And some small businesses tend to get stuck in between multiple storage products, which store the data in multiple copies.
As a result, the replicated data may take up the unnecessary capacity needed, which may even slow down the backup process.
To avoid such blunders, you may choose to adopt backup solutions such as built-in global deduplication technology and incremental backup methods which save storage capacity and reduce resource consumption.
With global deduplication, when the data is sent from one point of a network (known as a node) to another, the second node recognises a copy of the data and does not make an additional copy.
The incremental backup will then only copy data that has been updated or created since the previous backup activity was conducted.
Combining both methods allow SMBs to reduce the time and storage needed for backup activities.
Many SMBs find it challenging managing their ever-expanding amount of data while dealing with budget constraints. — Pexels.com pic
3. The budget issue
Another challenge most SMBs face is the lack of budget for IT-related expenditure.
Small businesses often face similar challenges as bigger corporations but they mostly lack the same resources, budgets and expertise to tackle them.
As a result, most of them face mounting pressure managing their ever-expanding amount of data while wrestling with budget constraints.
Finding a solution that rises to the challenges and ransomware threats can be overwhelming, but that does not make it less imperative.
It is now the time for SMBs to up their backup game with a centralised, effective, long-term backup that addresses modern data challenges.
To help SMBs address the aforementioned common challenges, data management company Synology offers Active Backup Suite to complete protection for all SMBs’ digital assets.
Here are several benefits Synology Active Backup Suite offers to SMBs:
1. Centralised management
With the Active Backup Suite, SMBs can back up unlimited Windows or Linux PCs, file servers, VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines, and accounts of Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 from one server.
It means SMBs can easily manage all backup tasks from a single, intuitive console and keep control over distributed deployments.
2. Maximise backup efficiency
Reduce backup time and improve storage usage efficiency by relying on data deduplication and incremental backups.
With built-in global deduplication technology, only one version of any repeated data is recorded, saving storage capacity and reducing resource consumption, while forever-incremental backup identify and transfer only changed blocks to reduce backup time and bandwidth.
3. Unlimited backups, licence-free
Active Backup Suite is a built-in Synology NAS, which means there is no need to pay an additional software licence fee.
SMBs just need to invest in hardware once and gain unlimited access to license-free backup solutions.
The all-inclusive Active Backup Suite not only helps to protect all the SMBs’ data, but it also comes with budget-friendly solutions and remarkable features.
It is one solution for all backup tasks, maximises backup efficiency with global deduplication and incremental backup, and most importantly it comes with an affordable price tag.
If you wonder how the Active Backup Suite can benefit your business, surf over here.