Common Sense Guide to Cyber Security

The Common Sense Guide to Cyber Security for Small Businesses published by Homeland Security at http://www.ready.gov/business/protect/cybersecurity.html offers a 30 page guide for businesses covering 12 best practices to protect your technology systems is a good overview of things you should implement. Much of the material presented is thorough and appropriate. The topics covered in the “Twelve Step Program to Cyber Security” are:

1. Use Strong Passwords and Change Them Regularly
2. Look Out for E-Mail Attachments and Internet Download Modules
3. Install, Maintain, and Apply Anti-Virus Programs
4. Install and Use a Firewall
5. Remove Unused Software and User Accounts; Clean Out Everything on Replaced Equipment
6. Establish Physical Access Controls for all Computer Equipment
7. Create Backups for Important Files, Folders, and Software
8. Keep Current with Software Updates
9. Implement Network Security with Access Control
10. Limit Access to Sensitive and Confidential Data
11. Establish and Follow a Security Financial Risk Management Plan; Maintain Adequate Insurance Coverage
12. Get Technical Expertise and Outside Help When You Need It

The section which advises “Create Backups for Important Files, Folders, and Software” is, however, leaving too much at risk.

Consider these questions:
• Can you server your customers without email?
• Can you provide services without your website?
• Can you stay in touch with customers with out your customer database?
• Can you even pay bills without your accounting system?

Your answer is probably “no” to most or all of these. And if your preparedness is limited to “Create Backups for Important Files, Folders, and Software” then, you have not done enough.

Why? Because, while backup is necessary, it is not sufficient to get you back in business quickly. Today, when systems suffer failures, it often takes multiple days to rebuild, reinstall, and reconfigure a working solution.

A new use of the word “workload” has been applied to Business Continuity Planning to refer to protecting more than just the data – to protecting the ability to get the job done.

Global Data Vault offers two options to protect workloads. Both of these options allow customers to resume operations in hours or minutes after a loss. For more information see our Failover and Replacement PC products.