Most hard drives in the machines we service have two distinct failure periods. The first type is the failures that happen in the first year of use. A look at our experiences, in addition to data across the web, shows that this may be somewhere in the 2-5% range. The other common failure is of older drives, those that have been in service for over 5 years, and they seem to have significantly greater chances of failure.
However, hardware failure is statistically less likely than damage by malware or ransom-ware. The likelihood of data loss as a result has increased exponentially. The only real protection is when data is backed-up and stored in a method that gives you access to older versions of the file. Why? Well let’s walk through a scenario…
Let’s say you backup all of your files from your machine onto an external backup. You don’t have much storage, so you set the backup to happen once a week and over-write the backup drive files each time. Sounds fine, right? You use your machine and it gets infected by some program hiding in a web page, picture, or download, but it is not yet obvious. Your machine works fine for a week or two. Then one day you try to go a view picture or files and they will not open. The files don’t open and you get a window that says your files have been encrypted and you will lose them all unless you pay a large amount of money to retrieve them. Your backup may now be worthless. The attack took place and now the “locked” version of your file is what is on the backup.
Cyber-Construction offers various methods of backup and protection for your files which include options to let you view versions of your files from the past 30 days. Also, by routinely making local backups to other media, you can preserve older files that do not change over time. #CyberAware
Contact one of our staff members and we can help you develop a plan that best fits your business.
