A total backup plan is a necessity for any law firm. Hackers, natural disasters, and employee negligence are just some of the factors that can affect data loss. Keeping all the data backups in-house leaves an open opportunity for a fire or flood to wipe out all your client data. Backing everything up in the cloud is a much better bet, but you still have to look at vulnerabilities without proper Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions in place. Managed service providers can point you in the right direction in regards to data recovery, which is important regardless of the backup system.

Ransomeware

Ransomeware attacks are more common every year. It is a virus which is usually activated by an employee clicking on an email link. Other viruses try to destroy software or steal information from your database. Ransomeware, on the other hand, reaches in and takes control of your law firm’s network. The attack locks employees out of the network until your firm complies with their demands. The most common attack asks for money sent to an account to release your network. In other cases, hackers spend the time stealing client information, which then can be sold to identity thieves. Last year, ransomeware cost businesses about $1 billion, and most of the attacks were aimed at small- and mid-sized businesses.

Downtime is a Disaster

Business continuity relies on an ever-flowing process of uptime. If anything stops the flow of business, then money is siphoned from the law firm immediately. The old adage “time is money” holds very true in today’s busy business world. Most downtime is accredited to human error. More than three-quarters of downtime reported is due to employees clicking improper links, and IT professionals making mistakes.

Downtime is expected to cost companies trillions of dollars in the coming years. According to the Association of Records Managers and Administration (ARMA) around sixty percent of businesses will close within two years after a disaster. Companies that do not have a disaster recovery plan get hit much harder. Only six percent will last another two years.

Disaster Recovery

Disaster recovery is an offensive attack against those that would harm your data. An offense that states law firms thought ahead before anything could happen. The best defense is an offense. We have all heard it said, and in data management it is true. In today’s world, disasters come in many shapes and sizes;

• Cyber-attacks
• Fraud
• IT system failure
• Employee negligence
• Floods and fires

The type of disaster does not matter. It is the ramifications from the disaster that lingers in a company’s life. Managed service providers can take a look at your firm and determine what exactly is needed to keep your data safe. See how TOSS’ vBCDR can help your law firm today.

Look at cloud-to-cloud backups, onsite data storage for important data that is continuously backed up to the cloud, or a hybrid configuration to keep client data separate from the daily work data. There are many options. Your best option depends on the type of data your law firm handles: medical data, financial records, or client data can have different needs and compliance levels. Contact TOSS C3 Get a free assessment today.