How to prevent the loss of business data.

Common causes of business data loss.

Identifying the cause of your company’s data loss is the first step to recovering from it:

Malware and viruses

Malware and viruses are a serious threat to businesses, governments, and people. These cybersecurity threats take many forms, including email scams. According to the University at Buffalo, spam emails citing student job offers are a recent version of this threat, but they can look like almost anything.

Businesses can face similar encounters with fake emails from people claiming to be “Jim from accounting” asking for a charitable donation. Or emails that spoof the look and feel of a trusted provider like Google, only to direct users to a fraudulent page that steals their information. This practice is known as phishing.

To protect against lost or stolen data, organizations need to train their members to identify probable phishing scams, and never provide personal or professional information via suspicious emails.

Data theft

Lax security can lead to stolen data. And where these attacks happen is evolving — mobile phones are the new target for data theft. Businesses that allow employees to hold information on their phones or other devices, whether company or personal, may be putting their data in jeopardy.

Software upgrades and bugs

Each upgrade, while essential to keep up with the speed of business, has the potential for data loss. Older file formats might not be supported by newer versions of software. Troublesome new bugs are always potential problems with updates and improvements too.

Keep files backed up before an upgrade to mitigate issues that come from keeping your apps up to date.

Hardware failure and issues

Older machines are at greater risk for data loss, but they’re not the only way hardware fails. Overheating is a common hazard for computers, and spilled cups of coffee can sometimes mean the loss of data on a given device. Computers can be fragile. Back them up so their data can stay resilient.

Natural disasters and power outages

Lightning strikes, fires, and floods can destroy both physical and digital infrastructure. Anything that can wipe out your office space can also wipe out your data. Back up your info so earthquakes don’t cause seismic shifts to your revenue stream.

Human error

Mistakes are inevitable, and every business should take into consideration the cost of human error. As always, back up your files. Don’t lose a whole quarter’s worth of data because someone clicked the wrong button.

In all of these instances, the key is to make your storage systems robust enough that a single bad event can’t wipe them out. It’s impossible to predict whether a natural disaster, cyber attack, or unforseen bug will compromise your data. But it’s reasonable to say that at some point something will. Be ready when it happens, so if you do lose data, you don’t lose it all, and you can bounce back quickly.