It is essential to understand the importance of World Backup Data for data protection

World Backup Day 2022 is here today, March 31, 2022, for all business leaders to take out some time off their busy schedules to reflect on the utmost important data protection issue. We have been experiencing innumerable cyberattacks on the vast amounts of large datasets with confidential and sensitive information across the world. Cybercriminals are improving their modern approaches to hack, steal, blackmail, and demand random ransomware from companies or individuals. For having effective data management efficiently, one needs to focus on data backup through a data protection system. World Backup Day gives us a chance to defend essential data against modern cyberattacks. Let's get to know more about World Backup Day and how tech leaders celebrate this day for data protection.

Importance of World Backup Day 2022

The constant advancements in cyberattack approaches from the dark web have made the global tech market and all other industries worry about the existing data. It is evolving with time and methods and no company knows when and how these cyberattacks will harm computer systems. The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has also contributed to the more use of smart devices and the supply of real-time data from different sources. Multiple groups of cybercriminals are always on the verge to seek weak links for selling data to the dark web.

Thus, World Backup Day helps to raise the necessary awareness of the need for data protection through necessary data backup methods. Organizations should be aware of the existing advancements in data protection tools with cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, IoT, machine learning, cloud computing, etc. It helps in effective data management while combating potential cyberattacks.

Data backup is a traditional process of making three or more copies to store the essential confidential data and folders for utmost data protection. This helps when one data storage is lost, for, it can be retrieved after the data loss. Even if the data management process is flawless, there are opportunities for virus attacks or corruption of files from potential cyberattacks. Thus, companies need to understand the importance of data backup through World Backup Day.

Organizations need to be well-informed about the current data backup processes to adapt to the evolving cyberattack space. There should be meetings and conferences to explain the importance of effective data management with necessary data backup strategies. Data protection can be beneficial to both organizations and stakeholders for maintaining the existing brand loyalty.

Multiple views on World Backup Day from global tech leaders in 2022

Anshuman Rai, Area Vice President, India & South Asia, Commvault, said: "The alarming rate of ransomware attacks has put cyber hygiene and data management at the centre of all businesses. In fact, the virtual-first approach leading to collaborative technology and increasing cloud adoption has redefined the role of CIOs. The value of data safekeeping, regular backups, cloud data protection of workloads in your cloud and multi-cloud environments hold the key for businesses to be future-ready and drive maximum value in the digital world."

He added that one of the most vital elements of data protection is how quickly lost data can be recovered, thus, emphasizing the importance of World Backup Day. Today serves as an annual reminder to get data backups in order so that when the worst does happen, the data can be recovered quickly without seriously impacting business continuity.

While talking about establishing a better backup, Anshuman noted, "Businesses must identify the desired outcome to smartly back up their data. To achieve this, they must consider the recovery requirements and evaluate the market trends and solutions best suited for their needs. For instance, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions have become very popular in India due to its cost-effectiveness, scalability, and flexibility, enabling users to roll out data protection capabilities quickly and smoothly, backup data while avoiding the expense of building and maintaining tailor-made data protection solutions."

Sandeep Bhambure, Vice President, Veeam Software- India & SAARC, commented, "It is evident that the dependency of businesses on data, and the amount of data generated by them is consistently growing. This is creating new challenges for organisations of all sizes, making them even more vulnerable to cyberattacks. According to Veeam Data Protection Report 2022, 84% of Indian organizations suffered ransomware attacks, making cyber-attacks one of the single biggest causes of downtime for the second consecutive year. The report also found that Indian organizations were unable to recover 36% of their lost data on average and 90% of organizations were unable to recover at least some of the data they had lost. Hence, it is essential that businesses have a comprehensive data backup plan in place to be fully prepared at the time of a data breach. That's not all! Only backing up may not protect your data from ransomware – it is equally important to ensure that the backup is well protected and securely stored. Organizations need to ensure their data protection capabilities keep pace with the demands of their business, to close the gap between how much data they can afford to lose after an outage versus how frequently data is backed up.

The good news is that we're seeing CXOs acknowledge the urgent need for Modern Data Protection. And investing in such technologies goes beyond providing peace of mind, ensuring business continuity, and maintaining customer confidence."

Ripu Bajwa, Director, and General Manager, Data Protection Solutions, Dell Technologies India pointed out, "In today's era of accelerated change and digital transformation, businesses in every sector need to do more with less. With businesses in India running workloads in a hybrid environment, it is critical to securely store data in multiple spaces like databases, file servers, and network-attached storage (NAS). While considering a solution that gives businesses the flexibility to access, upload, protect and analyze data, an asset that will have the advantage of long-term retention, reporting, and insight into cloud storage use, will serve Indian organizations better. Data use and storage have undergone dynamic changes. According to the Dell Technologies APEX Backup Services study, 65% of IT decision-makers lack confidence that they will recover all systems or data to meet SLOs following a data loss. An as-a-Service model can be a redefining solution for businesses across where an enterprise solution provider manages their data needs while they focus on business growth. 25% of IT decision-makers indicate that database or data management workloads are a good fit for the as-a-Service model."

"As a global leader in data protection solutions, Dell Technologies' enterprise backup solutions can protect everything from laptops and other edge devices to the largest enterprise data centre, along with data and applications residing in on-premises infrastructure, and virtualized environments including public, private, and hybrid clouds. With many options for backup storage, backup software, integrated appliances, and data protection and recovery solutions, Dell Technologies makes it easy to implement powerful tools for backup, recovery, data archiving, and data replication that can help to protect business-critical data, improve uptime and ensure data availability. Dell Technologies' new SaaS-based Apex Backup Services offers end-to-end scalable, secure data protection with centralized monitoring and management for SaaS applications, endpoints, and hybrid workloads," he added.

Ripu continued that this World Backup Day should be a welcome opportunity for businesses to reconsider their storage solutions and upgrade to safer cloud environments secured by cutting-edge data protection amenities, which will support their digital transformation journey.

Jeff Costlow, CISO of ExtraHop, spoke briefly on Word Backup Day, "Ransomware is a shadow that hangs over all organizations today. This World Backup Day should be a call for all organizations to examine how their backup and recovery plan weaves into their overall security strategy to ensure they are protected in the event of a ransomware attack. Sadly, organizations must take further precautions and cannot rely solely on their data backups. Today's ransomware has become an advanced threat with the 'hat trick' of exfiltration, encryption, and software exploitation. It used to be that the sole endgame of ransomware was encryption. Deploy the ransomware, encrypt the files, and demand payment in exchange for the keys. Today, ransomware criminals have introduced payment incentives at multiple steps in the killchain, from exfiltration of data to exploitation of the software. While it is key for organizations to ensure a strong backup and recovery strategy is in place for business continuity, they can no longer guarantee that their private data won't be released.

A backup plan is just the beginning. Other points to consider in a ransomware response plan include:

Initial access: This is where cybercriminals gain a foothold through a wide range of techniques proven effective over time, including phishing emails. Ensure you have user training in place and strong preventative measures including VPNs and firewalls.

The midgame: This is where the attacker pivots through an organization's infrastructure, accumulating assets and compromising data. Organizations need strong visibility into East-West traffic to spot ransomware, including lateral movements, domain escalations, command and control actions, and data staging.

The extortion cycle: Cybercriminals have compromised your systems and your data. A strong backup and recovery process is a critical piece of the puzzle that will keep your business up and running."

Last, but not least, Kumar Vembu, CEO and Founder of Gofrugal, said, "Data is the new oil, said a sane soul. The only difference is that oil would run out in a few years. Data, on the other hand, keeps getting accumulated exponentially. With more than 50% of the world's population using smartphones and digital devices, with new ones adding day by day, there are massive amounts of data created.

We walk, talk, eat, drink and breathe data. We are constantly leaving behind digital footprints. More so, when we engage with online platforms and are engrossed with digital channels. What most of us fail to notice, far less comprehend, is the lurking dangers and sneaking threats that we invite unintentionally. We hardly realize the growing platforms using AI + data to understand our choices and apprehend our preferences and use our own personal information to create personalized experiences.

It's time we all woke up to the realities and compulsions of data protection at large. It's not just about data backup and restores methods, but it's also about freeing businesses from digital slavery. It is the capacity to decide what data should be stored, how it should be used or not used, and to make sure it doesn't make us enslaved by hardware and enchained by software.

It's not just individuals who are unaware and unprotected. Over, 90% of small and medium-size retail and distribution businesses are not aware of the impact of data protection. According to a global survey by a cybersecurity firm, 57% of organizations suffered unexpected downtime last year because of data loss. The findings also revealed that while 91% of individuals backup data and devices, 68% still lose data because of hardware or software failures, out-of-date backup, power fluctuations, theft or accidental deletion. The backup methods are not regular and sometimes even a day's or week's day is lost because of manual methods.

This World Backup Day, businesses need to understand and commit to the importance of data backup and enjoying the freedom of sharing data in a secure environment. It is high time the world moves from celebrating the Backup Day to daily backup!"