93% of consumers and 97% of enterprises perform data backup at least once a year, according to the World Backup Day survey by Acronis.
World Backup Day falls on March 31, and is aimed to highlight the importance of data protection using backups. The reason it falls on March 31 is to remind everyone that if they don’t want to lose data and look like a fool on April 1, then they must securely back up their data.
Acronis is a leading provider of backup software and data protection solutions. It is conducting backup surveys for the last 4 years to learn about the habits of consumers related to backup, cyberthreat awareness, and data loss experiences. This year, the company surveyed individuals and businesses in 11 countries.
Key findings of the Acronis’ World Backup Day survey:
1. 93% of consumers and 97% of enterprises create data backup at least once a year. Of those, 73% of consumers do it monthly or weekly, while 86% of enterprises do it monthly, weekly, or daily.
2. In 2019, only 7.3% of respondents never back up their data, down from 31.4% in 2018.
3. However, only 10.3% of respondents back up their data to a hybrid of local and cloud storage. 90% of consumers and 73% of enterprises don’t back up their data to a hybrid of local and cloud storage.
4. 45% of consumers reported that they have more than four devices at home.
5. Regardless of the backup, 65% of consumers suffered data loss from a computer or mobile devices, either by themselves or their family members. On the other hand, 29% of enterprises reported a data loss that caused downtime.
6. 60% of enterprises are concerned or highly concerned about crypto-jacking.
7. 61% of enterprises said that they are concerned or highly concerned about ransomware.
8. Whereas, 61% of enterprises are concerned or highly concerned about social engineering attacks.
9. 70% of consumers said that they wouldn’t deny paying $50 to $500 for recovering data loss.
10. 46% of consumers have no idea about ransomware, while 53% don’t know about crypto-jacking. Another 53% of consumers have no idea about social engineering attacks.
How to back up complex data and protect it?
It is a tough task for IT managers to create data backup. It is because they need to protect physical, virtual and cloud environments, which is a complex process.
Acronis suggests that IT managers should follow the 3-2-1 rule of data protection.
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Follow 3-2-1 rule for data protection
According to Acronis, businesses should create three copies of every piece of important data. With this, they wouldn’t have to worry about data loss because a single event won’t delete all the data.
This data should be stored in two different formats, including an internal drive and an external media.
Keep one copy of data offsite. This step will ensure that data remains safe against physical disasters.
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Keep operating system and apps updated
Use of older versions of OS and apps might not have bug fixes and security patches. This can allow cybercriminals to gain access to devices.
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Be careful while opening infected emails, links or attachments
The main cause of virus and ransomware attacks is the social engineering techniques that infect users by tricking them to open suspicious email attachments and click malicious links.
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Use anti-virus software
Every desktop device should install anti-virus software and enable automatic updates to prevent common attacks. Windows users should keep Windows Defender always on and updated.
Also read: Acronis integrates its anti-malware solution PE Analyzer into Google’s VirusTotal
Images source: Acronis
