Cyber 101 Series - Backup and Recovery
by Neal Fisch in awareness, cloud, data cleanup, data security, devices, encryption, faculty, newsletter, personal security, security, staff, students, tips 0
Continuing our "Cyber 101" blog series targeted at protecting yourself against cyber threats, today's blog topic covers Backup and Recovery.
Today's guest blog contributor is Eric Varela. Eric is a student here at CSU Channel Islands majoring in Information Technology with a minor in Security Systems Engineering.
What are
‘Backups’? Backups are copies of your information that are stored
somewhere else. When you lose important data, you can recover that data from
your backups. The issue is that most people do not perform backups, which is
unfortunate, because they can be simple and inexpensive.
When should you
Back Up? Common options include hourly, daily, weekly, etc. For home
use, personal backup programs, such as Apple’s Time Machine or Microsoft’s
Windows Backup and Restore, allow you to create an automatic “set it and forget
it” backup schedule. For university use, backing up your classwork files on
your personal computer, and when using university equipment, manually backup your
files to a USB flash drive or cloud solution. (Tip: Backing up your classwork
could save you unimaginable headaches during the semester.)
Physical media is any type of hardware, such as DVDs, USB drives or external hard drives. The potential problem with physical media is that if your location has a physical disaster (theft or fire), then not only can you lose your computer, but the backups as well. You should plan to store copies of your backup off-site in a secure location. For extra security, encrypt your backups.
(Tip: Whichever media you choose, never back up your files to the device that holds the original files.)
Cloud-based solutions are different than physical media. This is a service where your files are stored somewhere on the internet. Depending on how much data you want to back up, this may be a paid service. This solution works by installing a program on your computer that automatically backs up your files for you. There are also solutions such as Google Drive and Apple iCloud that make it easy for you to save information on-the-go and from almost any computer. The advantage with this solution is that since your backups are in the ‘Cloud’, your backups are still safe if a disaster happens to your house or device. Plus, you can access your backups, or often even just individual files, from almost anywhere.
(Tip: If you are not sure which backup option is best for you (physical media or Cloud) keep in mind you can always do both.)
Recovery Backing
up your data is only half the battle; you have to be certain that you can
recover it. Check every month that your backups are working by recovering file
and validating the contents. In addition, be sure to make a full system backup
before a major upgrade or a major repair and verify that it is restorable.
(Tip: When rebuilding an entire system from a backup, be
sure you reapply the latest security patches and updates before using it
again.)
Derived from sans.org
