If you don’t have strong data protection in place today, you are underestimating some serious risks. So far, in 2020, ransomware attacks have already cost healthcare practices nearly $160 million – and we’re only halfway through the year.
In the healthcare sector, ransomware is responsible for shutting down clinics, hospitals, and severely affecting patient care. The implications are dangerous during normal times, and to navigate this during the COVID pandemic carries exponentially more risk.
All Types of Businesses are Targets
Healthcare isn’t the only alluring target for cybercriminals. City governments and municipalities are getting hit too and with an unfortunate rate of success. Small businesses are also a favorite target, with 71% of ransomware attacks targeting small businesses. These attacks are expensive. By the end of 2019, the average ransomware payment topped $80,000, which explains why 1 in 5 businesses hit with ransomware go out of business.
No entity or industry sector is off-limits. The reality is, your company is also at risk, just like the ones making news headlines.
Risks Go Beyond Ransomware
Ransomware is just one of the many factors that can stop your business in its tracks and turn your world upside down. Hardware failure, application failure, file corruption, human error, and Mother Nature are all real risks that require immediate consideration. Robust data protection is as critical to your business as healthy financials.
Staying Protected
The reality is that even with protection, there are risks. It is critical to understand those risks and minimize them with a balance of solutions that are the right fit and cost to your company.
Here are some questions to guide you in determining the best solution for your environment:
- What are your goals for RPO/RTO ?
- What are your goals for data retention?
- Are your backups encrypted?
- Is your protected data stored in more than one place?
- If so, can your backups run from a secondary location?
- Are all of your critical applications protected?
- Does your company have a disaster plan?
- Are your backups application-aware?
The Right Stuff
Your backup environment is not a book on a shelf that you can look at every few years. Like your production environment, it is continuously and rapidly changing. Think of it more like a virtual data center. Putting backups in place and waiting for failures is not adequate protection. You can’t pick out a solution, set it up, and consider it complete. It is something that needs to be continuously managed, just like your production data.
Validation
Automated backup validation can’t be 100% trusted. If you are not manually validating your backups regularly, it is the same as not being backed up at all. Often, important aspects of the technical environment are overlooked. It’s crucial to validate backups for:
- All applications including cloud applications
- EMR, SQL databases
- O365 environments
Don’t wait for a disaster to find out how well your validation process is working. It’s essential to know your company or healthcare practice is completely protected before a disaster strikes. The best way to navigate these risks and headaches is to partner with experts who solely focus on data protection, as opposed to it being one item on a long to-do list for an internal team member.
Key Partnerships
The best partners understand your business, are transparent about your risks, invested in your success, and 100% focused on data protection. That’s what the Patient Shield team at Path Forward does 24/7, 365 days of the year. We have a team of certified engineers that solely focus on your data protection, security, and risk management. Our team protects petabytes of data in unique environments, has experience restoring thousands of files and servers, and has brought companies back from the brink of disaster when it seemed impossible.
Backup Your Desired Normal
Backups are more than just peace-of-mind; they are your path back to “normal” after a data disaster. Make sure what you are backing up is the version of normal you would want to restore. Chances are if you aren’t very comfortable with your protection today, it’s time to really understand your risks and consider bringing in a partner.
Contact us to learn what a custom-tailored solution looks like for your business.
