You can have the world’s best security, but if you don’t back up your systems, it’s a recipe for failure. It's estimated that 51% of small- and medium-sized companies do not have an incident response plan.
If the company loses its data or a cyberattack takes down its network, there’s no plan of recovery.
Backups are the very first thing you should put in place when seeking help from an expert in cybersecurity in Miami. If you want to schedule and run tests, this is something that you can and should begin doing as soon as possible.
Create Backup Lists
Where are your backups? How do you access them? If your security company changes or your head of cybersecurity is out of the office, the list will help you know:
- Which backups exist
- Which backups must be run
- Settings and retention periods
Once you have a list in place, you can begin testing regular tests.
Plan to Schedule and Conduct Regular Backup Tests
If primary devices fail and need to be restored immediately, you’ll be happy when you’ve tested your backups and your team knows how to bring systems back up quickly.
Decide on Testing Schedules
Your team needs to set a testing schedule. If you’re a smaller business, a quarterly test of your backups will allow you to prepare for disaster and restore systems quickly. Monthly tests can also be done for larger entities and include:
- File-level restores
- VM level restore
Annual testing is more intense and should be performed, even though they’re extensive. Your annual test will include:
- Build your infrastructure on the cloud or locally
- Restore all systems
- Allow business units to connect to the system to test it out
A major part of your testing will include creating a detailed report.
Perform Full Restores
Depending on the size of the system, you may want to perform full restores on virtual machines. Testing a full restore and documenting the processes will help your team restore systems efficiently.
Reporting
Backup plans can face bottlenecks that slow down business continuity. You'll want to have a detailed report of the backup test that outlines:
- What restoration steps worked properly
- What issues arose during the system restore
- Steps to take to overcome issues during the next test
Automated testing with scheduled jobs can determine if backups are viable or not.
Backup testing shouldn’t be performed only on the file-level. You need to restore the full system, testing all access points and databases. Once the backup is up and running, the system must be scanned for:
- Abnormalities
- Missing data
- Errors
If you rely on one form of backup, such as a single cloud backup provider, it is a major risk if the backup provider goes down or is hacked. You want to create a redundancy plan where backups are mirrored across backup services to reduce the risk of one provider’s backup failing when your company’s operations are already impacted because of system failure, ransomware, malware or other issues.
Looking to hire cybersecurity companies in Miami?
Contact us to learn how we can help your business test its backups.