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Is Your Business at Risk?

If you pay attention to the news, chances are you’ve heard about some of the major cyberattacks crippling organizations across the world. For example, cybercriminals recently targeted the United Kingdom’s National Health Service through ransomware, which resulted in hospitals having to postpone surgeries and divert ambulances to other facilities. Some patients weren’t able to receive vital care because of this attack. Organizations in all industries and vertical markets are susceptible to cyber attacks and IT failure, which is why threat management and business continuity is even more important than ever in the Digital Age.

Is Your Business at Risk?

IT failure comes in many different forms. Cyberattacks are simply one example of what IT failure can look like for a business. Another common example of IT failure is a natural disaster or emergency, which can put network servers out of commission. No matter which form IT failure takes, it is essential that all companies have a plan in place to ensure they will be able to operate and access corporate and client information even in the event of a failure.

Business continuity refers to the ability of a company to continue providing customers with products and services even after a disruptive incident. For example, you may have employees relocate to another site after a natural disaster to get back to work. Resilience is the name of the game when it comes to business continuity. Threat management refers to network security approaches that focus on identifying and eliminating threats before they have the chance to infiltrate the system. Usually, such network security approaches have multiple layers that interact with each other to make it more difficult for threats to go undetected.

If a company fails to take threat management and business continuity seriously and an IT failure ends up occurring, this scenario can have a disastrous impact on a company. Unmanaged IT failure can have major financial implications. This is particularly true if your business is unable to operate at all after an IT failure, as your company will lose sales revenue until the issue is resolved. IT failure can also damage the reputation of your organization among customers. Many companies have had customers abandon them and switch to their competitors after a major IT failure due to a lack of trust.

As you can probably tell, IT failure has become one of the greatest threats for companies in this day and age. Therefore, it is essential that you refuse to be complacent when it comes to business continuity and threat management for your company. If you’d like to learn more about the solutions available to protect your organization, contact Infomax Office Systems today.

Maintain Business Continuity with Digital Archiving

Whether it’s an angry hurricane or a destructive fire, disasters can and will happen. Sadly, most businesses that suffer through a disaster will fail within two years. Digital archiving is one effective tool you can use to help protect your organization’s long-term health against the threat of a disaster.

What are digital archives?
Digital archives are electronic versions of your company’s historical assets. Archive content is fixed and not needed for current operations; its main purpose is long-term storage and retrieval. Archives can provide an automated mechanism for regulation-mandated records retention, and typically have extensive metadata attached to allow for search and retrieval of even the oldest records.

How are archives different from backup?
Contents in your digital archives don’t change to reflect your daily operations. Archived data is not in current use and will be kept essentially as-is over the long term. Backup for disaster recovery, however, generally involves up-to-date copies of operational information that can be restored quickly. In fact, you’ll even want to back up your archives to protect yourself in the event something should happen to the original files (a safety net not available with paper-based archives). Remember this rule for backing up: three copies, on two types of media, in one additional location.

Why are archives needed?
Digital archives go beyond operational recovery (disaster response) and organizational recovery (business continuity). Your company doesn’t want to lose regulatory records or long-term, institutional history. Corporate governance, litigation, and regulatory compliance all demand data be archived past three, seven, or even ten or more years. Digital archives also provide security and traceability, with audit trails recording who accessed what, when, and what they did.

What else should I consider?
Since digital archives are for the long term, don’t forget to address issues such as life expectancy (of the software required to read data and the storage technologies themselves), increasing capacity needs over time, and the eventual disposal of the data.

A disaster could strike at any time. If you want your business to be one that bounces back after the worst happens, it’s time to get started with digital archiving. Contact Infomax today to learn more.