Recently, we took a detailed look at data breaches. Today, we’re identifying the data that is necessary for business operations, and why it is imperative that businesses are prepared to protect it. According to University of Maryland research, a cyber-attack occurs every 39 seconds. In addition, there was a total of 1,244 data breaches in 2018 with 446.5 million exposed records in the United States alone. These statistics can be intimidating for businesses who have thousands of important files packed with data to protect.

Data is key to operating a successful business. In order to change strategy and see growth, corporations depend on meaningful data. This means that protecting it should be just as important as analyzing it.

Businesses are run on data, which includes sensitive, personal information provided by clients, as well as a wide range of data points collected for the purpose of analytics and growth. Data helps lead decision-makers to educated predictions, and in turn, they can create successful strategies.

It is important for businesses to stay on their toes and constantly be ready for change. Business strategy must constantly be altered. Data is what helps determine the next steps to take as a business owner. It allows them to analyze new audience behaviors, find new customers, track social media retention, predict sales trends, investigate their competition from a statistical point of view, examine whether their team is reaching the goals they put in place, and more.

Overall, data is what truly determines growth in a business. It reinforces where you are in the market, where you’re going, and how to get there.

A data breach is when a data source has successfully been infiltrated and sensitive information has been extracted. The issue with losing data is it can result in the loss of billions of private records and sensitive data. This not only affects the business itself but also anyone who may have their personal information stolen. The kind of information at risk includes names, date of birth, social security numbers, member ID numbers, email addresses, and bank account information.

There’s too much at stake for your business to neglect the extra security measures needed to protect your data. In 2018, 80% of organizations planned to increase their security spending, proving that the issue is very real and on a large scale. Even though there is a realized need for protection, surprisingly few companies have a cohesive backup plan in place in case security risks do arise. Even fewer businesses test their backup retrieval systems to make sure they are consistently working the way they should.

All of this information about data brings about a clear conclusion — having a system in place to protect your data is an important part of running any business. A comprehensive data security plan requires secure systems and infrastructure, as well as plan to deal with any data emergencies that may arise.

To ensure that your business and its data are protected, SingularisIT offers customized Backup as a Service (BaaS). We have the ability to back up from any source and recover to any destination or system, completely preventing a data loss nightmare. In addition, our comprehensive White Glove IT  offers detail-oriented and affordable IT to securely address all of your business IT needs.