Not Backing Up Your Data? You May Be Skating on Thin Ice

As the leaves change colors and winter is right around the corner, keeping safe and warm will soon be on everyone’s mind. You should also, no matter the season, always be mindful of keeping your important information safe. Making backups of your valued information is a key measure to guard against data loss, through accidental deletion, hardware failure or even malware/malicious activity. Keep in mind these considerations:

• What do you want to back up? Only certain information particularly of importance to you, or all of your data?
• How often do you want to back up your data? Many programs can create backups on a set schedule or automatically backup when information is modified.
• What process are you going to use to create backups? Local (on physical devices such as an external drive) and cloud-based solutions are the key methods. Each have their own pross and cons.
• Are you testing your backups? It’s best practice to retrieve or open files from your backups to ensure that they are working properly.

These tips (and other helpful information) are available here.

This tip courtesy of the ACBA Legal Technology and e-Discovery Committee, and the Sept.7 SANS Institute “OUCH!” newsletter.