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Data Loss Prevention Ebook - Includes Codez PDF
Data Loss Prevention Ebook - Includes Codez PDF
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Firmware Updates 14
If Your Hard Disk Is Failing: Backup 14
Automatic versus Manual 14
Manual Backups 15
Automatic Backups 15
Modern Day Backup Methods 15
CDs, DVDs (Regular and Blue-ray) 16
The Pros: 16
The Cons: 16
The Cons: 18
The Cons: 19
The Cons: 20
The Cons: 21
The Cons: 23
Purpose
Data is an integral part of our lives. In the modern era data has become inseparably
linked to our identity, our history, and our memories. It is comes in all kinds of forms
from songs, to movies, to contacts, to emails, to pictures, to documents, etc. We
are immersed in it; yet we rarely take care to make sure we don't go without it.
The universal rule is that hardware fails 100% of the time. It is not a matter of if,
but when. On average hard drives fail every four to five years; devices get lost,
stolen, dropped, wet, and broken with regular frequency. Regardless of the exact
timing we have to accept it will happen sooner or later, but it will happen. More
than that though, data is under constant threat. Things such as data corruption from
errant copying, viruses, Trojan horses, and worms, device theft and/or loss, are also
threats. Why do we ignore the danger?
We get insurance for our cars, our boats, our homes, our possessions, our
lives; however, most of us fail to take the steps to insure that our valuable data
is safe and protected. This is a grave mistake.
Don't allow the uncertainty of the unknown to cause you years of regret later. It
can seem too complicated to keep your data backed up given all the data backup
options out there; however, don't be intimidated there are some really great tools out
there to make it very easy. As you go through the options you will see that setting
your backup to be automatic so you don't have to remember gives you the most
peace of mind.
Getting your data secured is simple and straight forward with the modern tools
created to tackle this everyday problem. As you will see you have a variety of
options, but offsite data storage is your best, easiest, and most reliable backup tool.
Read through this white paper to decide for yourself.
Good news though, you had the data backed up to an external drive, oh but the
drive was with the laptop when it got lost or stolen. Or it's on your flash drive in
your desk drawer, but you haven't backed up in weeks so you haven't lost everything
just the last 3 weeks of data, which included your child birthday pictures and your
income tax that you have to file in two days!
Your hard drive never dies the day after you backed it up; your laptop never gets
stolen the day after you bought it when there is nothing of value on it. It always
happens at the worst possible time when you have deadlines looming and when you
don't have 20 hours to try and re-create your entire digital life.
Let's be honest, it's not a question of if you are going to have a data loss, it's
a question of when. The odds are always against you. Every single day you
run that computer the hard drive is getting older, and the drive is getting closer to
death. Hard drive manufacturers actually have a term for it. They call it Mean Time
between Failures (MTBF); it stands for the number of hours they expect the drive to
run before it dies - at which time your data is lost forever.
When you consider that computer users have reported hard drive failures a week
after buying the computer and others are still running on the original drive they
purchased in 2003 it is clear that you are playing Russian roulette with your data
every single day.
The truth is that viruses are the least of most computer user's problems. The major
cause of data loss is hardware problems. Hard drive failures and such. The second
biggest risk is human error!
Clearly the numbers speak for themselves. 84% of the time, data is going to be
lost because the hardware fails or you make an error. The error can be clicking the
wrong button or deciding to leave your laptop in your car where it can be easily stolen.
The bottom line is that in the majority of the cases data loss can be prevented.
Or if you carry your backup around with you in your laptop bag and your laptop
gets stolen, so does your backup.
Downside of this of course is if you have a disaster and you lose a file you have to
go get your backup from wherever it is stored. If you lose the data at 2am you can't
get it from the safe deposit box and you may not be able to get it from work.
No one can predict when a natural disaster will come through be it earthquake,
tornado, flood, wildfire, lightening, etc. Moreover, no one can know if or when
they will be robbed. Each area is unique. For sure though, unpredictable events
happen to all of us in any location: street, airport, home, etc. Sadly, there is one
consistency between all catastrophes—they don’t leave you much time to react. If
you don’t prepare or plan in advance, it will be virtually impossible at the last second
to take care of everything.
You need to be ready. It is critical that you keep your backup as far away from
you as possible. People tend to use a safety deposit box at a local bank, but in the
event of a regional disaster, they will likely be affected too. Do you have parents
or kids or friends a state or two away or a couple of cities away that you can trust
with your data—send them a copy? Better yet, make use of a cloud based backup
solution so you don’t have to worry about this.
Backup Often
When asked "How often should I backup?" the response I give most is "How much
data can you afford to lose?" The responses to that question vary greatly, but most
people say they can't afford to lose any data.
If that's the case then you need to backup every single day that you create new
data. Unless you have software that can automate your backup daily, this can be
quite a chore.
computer in a room that is very hot, etc. Computers have temperature limits. The
worst is the laptop left on inside of the laptop bag in the car during a sales call. Data
loss is almost inevitable. It is important that a computer keep as heat, humidity, and
water free as possible.
It is vital that you blow out the devices fans and open up the case if it is not a
laptop and blow out the dust.
The advantage to using a UPS is that protects against power surge where high
voltage enters the device, but another distinct advantage is that it gives you sufficient
time to save your open files and shut down your operating system when the power
goes out. This helps to prevent corrupted files and/or damage to some of the
hardware in the device when power is cut unexpectedly.
There is high risk of death from fire or electrical shock from failing to manage this.
Your data of course is at risk when you fail to account for these important details.
Make sure power strip’s and switches are all of the highest quality. Avoid daisy
chaining power strips together as this can lead to overheating. You do not want any
short circuits, loose connections or burning of any kind.
Also, sometimes you can hear a slight ticking sound or other odd noises. Continuous
blue screens from the operating system and read failure errors can indicate hard
drive issues. If you are not backing up or don't have a current back up, start backing
up regularly, because it is likely that disk sector issues or complete hard drive failure
is in progress.
Remember 100% of hard drives fail 100% of the time. It may be a month or three
years or six years, but it will fail.
You have to plan for that eventuality. If you detect these signals, be grateful for
the warning and take prompt action. Many times, hard drives just don't spin up on
the next reboot and you have no chance to recover your data.
Or, better yet do full and incremental backups in the cloud so you don't have to
worry about this.
They can turn your computer into a bot (remotely sending files through your machine
to attack other machines). They can delete your data. They can modify your data.
They can change files in your operating system so that when you reboot it crashes
There is no magic bullet for complete prevention; however, you must pick a highly
recommended Antivirus software that monitors your email and all of your files to
detect, block, and remove malware. Don’t ever neglect updating the program,
applying patches, and daily auto downloading the virus signature files for the highest
level of security. In addition to the real time scanning that the software will do, you
need to get into the software and configure regular full scans of your computer drives
at least once a week.
want to keep your hard drive operating at its peak performance so it does not wear
out early.
As files get written to the hard drive they are written one byte at a time. These
bytes are not written continuously one right after the other. They are fragmented
and placed all over the hard drive as space is available. So it is good to clean up
temporary files, delete unused files, delete junk files, empty the recycle bin, and
defrag your hard drive. Operating systems provide a defragmentation utility that if
you run it from time to time will reorganize all the bytes so they are continuous.
Defragging your drive reduces disk thrashing and improves data seek times and
operating system performance.
Firmware Updates
Be very careful with firmware updates. Improperly applied firmware updates can
cause systemic damage to your hardware that is completely unrecoverable without
shipping the device back to the manufacturer. Make sure the firmware applies to your
device’s make and model. Make sure that it is newer than your existing firmware.
Make sure that you don’t need to put a previous firmware on the chip first.
You have a very limited window to get good data after the hard drive has degraded.
Multiple boots of the device are not effective and will likely result in catastrophic
loss.
Automatic Backups
For most users, especially anyone non-technical, automatic backups are highly
recommended. Most especially real-time automatic backups are preferred because
they are constantly monitoring your system for data changes and copying the changes
as they are happening. In the event of a catastrophe, virtually all of your data is
recoverable – even the baby photos you took this morning and the tax return you filed
this afternoon. Even if you don’t choose a near real-time backup solution, automatic
backups are preferred over manual for any frequency of time (daily, nightly, weekly,
etc.). Choosing automatic versus manual then dictates what backup media options
you have available to you.
These varied media options, automatic versus manual, as well as multiple types of
software used to control the backups can make data backups seem overly complicated,
but don’t be fooled by the hype. Certainly, each has their own degree of cost,
complexity, and risk; however, there is only one solution that can be considered best
in class. Let’s discuss each option and their pros and cons so you can make an
educated decision. Additionally make sure to review the Appendix there is a simple
to understand table that codes each type (red, green, and yellow) based on various
factors.
The problem is the average size of a hard drive sold with a computer in 2012 is
usually 150-200 Gigabytes so if you are looking to back up a computer hard drive
that is just at half capacity you are talking about 75 blanks CDs or a dozen of the
highest capacity DVDs to backup an average computer. Finding software to backup
to multiple DVDs would be a challenge and the cost of hundreds of blank discs every
month (if you are following best practices and backing up often) can get expensive
and tedious to say the least.
The Pros:
• A backup is a backup and it is better than no backup, but other than that there are not
many
The Cons:
• It’s exceptionally slow
• It's full hands on, you have to touch, insert, label, wait for every CD or DVD to get writ-
ten. A DVD will take 10-30 minutes (depending on your software and the device speed)
to write to it. If you have a full hard-drive to backup like most people do, it will take you
literally hours and hours of your time sitting and waiting and inserting and ejecting and
labeling.
• It’s tedious
These types of storage devices are great in that they are solid-state devices (they
don't have any moving parts). Additionally, they are very small and highly portable
and inexpensively shipped if needed to move large files.
Again the challenge is that most computers come with large hard drives and a
medium sized flash drive would not have the capacity of a computer even at half
capacity and the larger flash drives can be more expensive than the computer
itself.
Like the CD/DVD solution you have to find software to use to backup to a flash
drive, perhaps software that came with the computer may be adequate.
You still have to manually insert the Flash drive and manually run a backup.
Sadly, just because they are small and seemingly innocuous, they can prove to be
a headache. There are some key things you need to do to make sure that you don't
lose your data. People making simple mistakes often corrupt data on USB drives.
Don't assume just because your USB Drive has been in your possession the whole
time that it is virus free. It is as easily infected as your email and other files are.
Make sure you have your virus software scan your memory stick for viruses. If you
are running Windows XP or Windows Vista turn off AutoRun so you don't risk viruses.
Newer operating systems do this for you.
Don't just grab the stick from the computer, make sure it is safe to remove the
device; properly eject it if required. Most important is to make sure that all of your
files are done writing and that you don’t accidentally have any windows, folders, or
files open that are referring to this drive because the operating system considers that
to be "in use".
Don't let it get too hot or wet. They are small and easily left behind don't lose
them. Don't get them close to strong magnets.
Don't work on your files directly on the USB flash drive. Copy them to your main
PC before you start editing. When you are done, copy them back again.
The Pros:
• If you can afford the larger USB drives you may be able to fit your entire backup on one
flash drive
• Solid state backup to memory with no moving parts
The Cons:
• Unless you can afford multiple larger USB drives you will have to erase the last backup
before putting a new backup on the flash drive. This can be risky.
• Most Flash drives have a slow write speed so you may not be able to write your backup
to a flash drive in less than 3 or 4 hours if there is a lot of data to protect.
• Data corruption happens often with USB drives especially with NTFS operating systems.
Some USB drivers do not have adequate data corruption protection sacrificing protection
for speed.
• Data corruption happens when the USB drive is inadvertently ejected or pulled out during
the backup. Sometimes the software indicates that the write action is complete; however,
the hardware has not completed the data transfer. An unsuspecting user can corrupt the
entire flash drive by pulling it out of the system while it is in use.
• USB flash drives are difficult to label
• Most people only have one USB drive so they are always manipulating directories and
files, which risks messing up or losing stored backups.
When you plug in your external hard drive to a plug and play computer regardless
of operating system it will detect it automatically and will assign it a drive letter for
identification purposes.
You can configure your back software to write to it on a scheduled basis with regular
frequency if you intend to leave plugged into your computer at all times; however if
you remove it and store it offsite or in a safe on property, then the process becomes
manual.
The Pros:
• You can backup multiple copies of your data with a large drive to protect against accidental
file deletion or corruption
• It can be used on a scheduled automatic basis
The Cons:
• The internal components of the drive are no different from the hard drive on your machine.
It likewise will fail over time.
• Backup software utilities are often complex and confusing
• You can inadvertently lose a good backup by overwriting it with bad data
• You have to be able to differentiate between the various drives on your computer and know
which are internal versus which are external and backup to the proper drive
• Most people typically leave them attached to their computers for automatic backups to oc-
cur; however that leaves them vulnerable to fire, theft, water, natural disaster
• Because the operating considers the external drive to be part of the data storage system
on the computer, any virus can easily take over and infect the files on the external drive
like a regular drive.
The operating system can be configured to span the internal drivers or to operate
them independently of each other.
The Pros:
• Backups are fast because they are internal within the box
• If left unspanned, data is on a different hard drive which provides against hardware fail-
ure.
The Cons:
• Automating backups can be complex
• Mirroring drives is very complicated for most
• If you lose your computer due to fire, theft, natural disaster, etc. your backup is lost with
it.
• Viruses can easily corrupt data on internal drives
• Vast majority of laptops do not allow you to add secondary hard drives. Even if they do,
they are often proprietary and costly.
Typical setups put four drives inside of the NAS. Two drives mirror each other
and then both sets of drives mirror the other set. This provides ultimate protection
against data corruption because if a hard drive fails no data is lost.
The Pros:
• If this is your main data storage location for all data then you have significant protections
over a regular computer or laptop.
• You can store data from multiple people on the same device.
• Hard drives on most NAS devices are hot swappable so no data will be lost on hardware
failure.
The Cons:
• Very costly
• It is not mobile
• You may not have you data with you when you travel if you forget to move it over to your
computer
• RAID configurations on individual drives are sometimes lost and have to be recreated put-
ting the drive in a degraded state
• When individual hard drives fail, if they are not immediately replaced, the entire data set
is at risk
• No protection from theft, fire, natural disaster, etc.
Solution providers such as Nitrobackup.com are the very best at taking care of your
data because that is their specialty. They make sure your data is safe and protected
from all threats – virus, Trojan horse, worms, corruption, hard drive failure, forgetting
to backup, etc.
Cloud based providers take so much of the risk out of backing up. They have
redundant hardware, multiple sources of power, multiple sources of bandwidth,
special contingency plans for outages, self-contained heating and cooling systems,
etc. They are experts who maintain the equipment and the systems. The web
interface makes it easy for you to get your data to and from them, but they can
distribute the costs to all of their customers so the individual customer pays far less
than they would to setup this level of backup on their own.
Another big advantage to you is that as your storage needs increase meaning as
you add more and more pictures, music, videos, documents, etc. to your collection
of files, the service is scalable. They do not cap the top storage limit.
The other great benefit to cloud based storage is that they are inexpensive and
they allow you to pay as go. They don’t demand a large sum of money to get
started; there is no down payment required. You simply have to sign up and tell
them which files to back up and then they take over from there.
To quote an over used cliché, “You simply can set it and forget it,” but not really,
you do want to keep an eye on it and respond to any emails from the provider
requiring action from you. Nonetheless over other backup media and options the
complexity is gone and you can take care of the rest of your responsibilities in life.
The backup headache fades into the background and you reduce your risk of data
lost exponentially over traditional methods.
The service is great. You can set the backups and know that your vital data is
backed up securely, offsite, instantly available around the world from any computer,
and can easily be restored if lost.
The Pros:
• Software is simple to install and use and typically takes very few minutes to get up and
going.
• Very reliable
• Allows for multiple backups and multiple versions of your files
The Cons:
• For most average users, it can be a little slow to get the first full backup. This limitation is
not a limitation of the cloud service, but a limitation of your Internet Service Provider (ISP).
Most ISPs offer a large download speed, but they throttle the upload speeds.
Versioned backups are valuable if you have the storage space because it allows
you to keep files and directory structures as they evolve so you can go back at any
time to an altered file for which you want the previous version.
Cloned backups are important to do because they are a wholesale copy of your
existing data exactly as it is now. This is good to have on hand for sure; however,
if you have file corruption and/or viruses you might be copying bad data over good
data unless you have sufficient storage space to create version backups of your
cloned images.
A secondary method that is very common is to get the full backup and then
subsequently to just perform incremental backups. This means that you are only
copying the files that have changed. This saves a significant amount of time to
backup because you are not copying the entire data structure, but you are capturing
changes as you go.
It is recommended that you do a version cloned (full) backup (keeping multiple full
backups) on a periodic basis, but for minute-by-minute changes, virtually real-time
incremental backups are the preferred method.
Differential backups will backup everything that has changed since the last full or
incremental backup. However, it does not reset the archive attribute of the files.
This typically means that the differential backup will be larger than the incremental
backup. As an example, if you do a full backup of all your files on a Friday, but then
run a differential backup on Saturday. It copies all the files changed from Friday to
Saturday. If you take another differential backup on Tuesday, it copies all the files
that have changed from Friday to Tuesday. So depending on the age of the original
backup that the differential is relying on, the differential backup can grow to be very
large in size until the next full backup is performed.
The advantage of differential over incremental is that you have a major set of data
your full backup and then you have several copies of the changed files. However,
if you choose to just make an incremental copy after each full backup then you
continuously are overwriting the files and you cannot recover corrupted or versions
of files before current edits were saved.
Full data backups are the very best every day, but the cost in terms of media
and time to complete the storage for large data sets, makes it impractical and not
worthwhile.
The real decision on effective backup frequency should be based not on complexity
because short of a cloud backup solution, most all are very complex, but on how often
the data changes. Some companies choose to run daily—even hourly backups. For
you, you will have to pick a comfort level with what you are willing to lose depending
on how often you backup versus how often your data changes.
Certainly, if you have the time to monitor regular backups and money to purchase
sufficient storage media, run multiple archives of full backups, especially if you are
using custom software for your backup that compresses the files or indexes them
uniquely. Proprietary backup solutions have some advantages, in that they can be
faster and take less storage media, but that comes with inherent risk too. Many
people have found that their backups were failing, but sadly, they did not discover
the compression or indexing corruption until the moment that they needed them
Archive Attributes
It may be useful for you to understand how file attributes work. Backup utilities and
operating system commands use these to identify characteristics of files. One of the
attributes the operating system tracks for every file is the archive attribute. PCmag.
com defines the archive attribute as, “A file classification that indicates whether the
file has been updated since the last backup. A bit is set in the file directory to
indicate the archive status. When a file is created or saved, the bit is turned on.
When it is backed up, the bit is turned off.”
When you do a full backup, each file in your dataset is flagged that it was backed
up by turning this bit off. Then when something gets changed it is easy to know
what needs to be backed up because the archive attribute will be turned on meaning
that the file was changed in some way—or it could mean that it is a file that is newly
created since the last backup.
Copyright 2012 : All Rights Reserved : NitroBackup : Online Cloud Backup
26 Data Loss Prevention ~ Protecting Your Digital Life
Fortunately, this archive attribute works in the background without any intervention
by you. Operating systems and backup software rely on this for conducting the
backup.
It is important to know about because you can inadvertently wipe out this attribute
of the file and the other file attributes (related to security, rights, permissions, privacy,
etc.) if you copy files or restore them improperly.
Fire Drills
You need to be sure your back up works. The best option is to restore files from it
as a test before you actually need them. This can be tedious and time consuming,
but it is necessary to be sure that you actually have a good backup.
You cannot forget about this step. Just making the backup is not sufficient. You
can never know that the backup worked as desired. You have to test that when you
really need them they will work for you. Plan a fire drill; pretend you lost your data
and see if you can get it back.
Summary
Your goal is data loss prevention. You want your data to never be lost and be
part of you -- forever. You want data continuity into perpetuity. You want your
grandchildren to see your photos and videos. All of your data is valuable and needs
to have a preservation insurance plan in place to protect it forever. As you can
see based on our discussion above, backups are a must. Automatic backups are
preferred. Cloud based backups are without exception the best – and frankly - the
only recommended solution. Take the steps to safeguard your data today. Confirm
that it will always be there for you.
Bonus Offer
As a purchaser of the Data Loss Prevention eBook, you are entitled to a special
discount on the NitroBackup service plans. To say thanks for the purchase, here are
two coupon codes, one for the annual subscription billing, and one for the monthly.
Appendix
Backup Methods
Use the table below to help in your decision making for a backup solution that
works for you, your budget and time requirements.