Even Presidents Can Be Hacked

Data is the life blood of all organisations, and any loss of data can have serious implications for a business. The sudden loss of sensitive financial records or confidential information would be devastating to a company, with potential consequences including operational disruption, financial loss and reputational damage, as well as emotional distress to its customers.

Data loss can occur in many different ways. A hardware failure, a power outage, a natural disaster, or a cyber attack could all result in the loss of critical business data. Without a data backup plan, your organisation could be at risk of losing everything.

This means it’s essential to have proactive cybersecurity in place, as well as steps to control data backup and recovery, to protect an organisation’s digital assets. Having a reliable and redundant backup solution can assist companies to recover from incidents such as ransomware or hardware failure.

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Three, Two, One: Go! For Data Backup

Data backup is a proactive measure that involves creating duplicate copies of critical data to guard against potential loss. These copies act as insurance against unforeseen events like hardware failures, accidental deletions and even cyberattacks.

Establishing a reliable backup strategy is like giving yourself a digital safety net to protect against risks – or an insurance policy, to put it another way.

Effectively implementing data backup and cybersecurity requires a strategic approach. Establishing a solid data backup plan involves adhering to the 3-2-1 backup rule, which has been used for many years and is supported by solution providers, businesses and even governments.

The 3-2-1 backup rule outlines that three backups must be kept, two of which should be on two different media (usually disk and tape), while one copy must be outside the primary data centre. This approach ensures protection against various scenarios, from hardware failures to natural disasters.

SA President Not Immune from Ransomware Attacks

South African government institutions have been battered by ransomware gangs over the last year.

The Development Bank of Southern Africa was targeted by a ransomware attack in June 2024, with servers, logfiles and documents stolen. In September this year, South Africa’s defence department was hacked by a gang that also allegedly leaked the personal phone number and email of President Cyril Ramaphosa, as well as a portion of the 1.6 terabytes of data stolen from the country’s defence systems.

The country’s International Trade Administration Commission also said it was hit with ransomware in early 2024. More recently, in June, the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) was targeted by a ransomware attack in which hackers deleted sections of their system, including backup servers, which meant that they were required to rebuild many of the affected parts. The attack took place at a time when Mpox outbreaks in the country were of concern.

These statistics show that data loss is a severe problem that can have a significant impact on an organisation, causing financial and reputational damage.

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Protect Your Data with Vox

At Vox, we understand the critical importance of keeping your data safe with a backup and recovery plan. As a Veeam Gold Partner, we offer your business the opportunity to create a copy of your data through our Backup as a Service, which uses the 3-2-1 rule.

As a trusted leader in the data protection space, Veeam provides backup, recovery and replication for critical workloads, like VMware, AWS, Microsoft Azure, SQL Server, Oracle, Windows, Linux and NAS, across physical, virtual and cloud platforms, in a single offering.

With the Vox 3-2-1 Backup solution, we provide an onsite data store for fast local restores, and replicates the data to our Cloud repository in case of major onsite disaster. It supports onsite virtual or physical servers as well as Windows and Linux desktops.

 

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We offer a number of benefits:

  • A fully managed solution with proactive monitoring to ensure data isn’t lost
  • Ongoing integrity testing ensures that data is not corrupt and that backups can be recovered
  • The option to quickly restore to Vox Cloud so that users can continue to work.

Companies implementing a backup strategy often only keep data on-site, believing this to be infallible. However, a ransomware attack or critical hardware failure, in most instances, renders the data unrecoverable. With our Vox solution, you can protect against this risk by adding an additional layer of redundancy, as follows:

  • 3 copies of your data: This is the primary copy of the data you are using as well as two backups.
  • Saved on 2 different mediums: In addition to your primary copy, an onsite NAS device stores your backups, enabling quick restore functionality to reduce downtime.
  • 1 copy offsite in the Vox Cloud: Using Veeam’s Cloud connect, a backup copy is stored and maintained in the Vox Cloud.

 

The urgency to backup data lies in the potential devastation that is caused by data loss. You don’t want your organisation to become another statistic – or another bad news story in the headlines.