World Backup Day: What, Why, and How?

Most of us have experienced moments when the data suddenly disappears from the local system or the external storage drives, which might be a picture, a song, or a video. It is a great shame to lose this data for individuals, however, things get more complicated when it concerns enterprises, for whom this is a true nightmare due to the huge ripple effect. Organizations may end up being fined, sued, or even bankrupt from this. Join us on March 31st, as we celebrate World Backup Day.

History of World Backup Day

World Backup Day is an annual celebration held on March 31^st by the backup and tech industry to encourage people to back up their data and avoid the risk of losing it forever. Started with a Reddit post in which a user shared his experience of losing the hard drive and data on it, and wished someone had reminded them of backing up data in advance, the campaign began in 2011 and was originally World Backup Month and changed to World Backup Day later.

Because it falls on the day before April Fools Day, the slogan "Don't be an April Fool. Backup your data." is meant to remind people of taking action for their valuable digital assets.

Why We Celebrate World Backup Day?

We often hear about the consequences of losing data, such as a crucial photo or video disappearing or a hacked computer leading to blackmail. News outlets report on ransomware attacks against companies and governments. However, we should not gloat over these losses because anyone can fall victim to data loss if they do not back up their data and continually put it off until "tomorrow."

Common causes of data loss include hardware failures such as a malfunctioning hard drive or power surges, a human error like accidentally deleting files or not backing up important data, malware or hacking including viruses and ransomware, natural disasters such as floods, fires, and earthquakes, and software bugs or glitches that can cause data corruption or inaccessibility.

Among them, cyberattacks receive the most attention for the enormous amount of economic loss and malware variants.

Common cybercrimes:

1.       Spoofing and Phishing: A fraudulent cyberattack that tricks people into giving away sensitive information through fake messages or emails that appear to be from legitimate sources.

2.       BEC attacks: Business email compromise attacks are email blasts on businesses and organizations where cybercriminals impersonate trusted sources to send fraudulent emails for personal information.

3.       DDoS attacks: Submit an excessive number of junk requests to the server to bring it down.

4.       Ransomware attacks: Prevent access to the system or data until the victim pays the ransom.

5.       Malware: Malicious software is designed to harm the computer/network/server with many subsets like trojans, spyware, worms, viruses, bots, and others.

6.       Identity-driven attacks: Compromise the credentials of a valid user and masquerade as that user, including Kerberoasting, Man-in-the-Middle, Pass-the-Hash-Attack, Credential Stuffing, etc.

7.       Code injection attacks: Inject malicious code into a system or network to change its behavior.

Facts speak louder than words:

Living examples:

• French hospital CHSF suffered a ransomware attack in which hackers asked for $10m.

• Twilio announced the data breach after an employee phishing attack.

• 1000 Cloudflare customers attacked by Mantis Botnet DDoS.

• Flagstar bank data breach influenced over 1.5 million customers.

• Canadian defense contractor Top Aces was attacked by LockBit ransomware which stole 44GB of data.

• Sunwing airline delays 188 flights due to a cyberattack on its provider.

• You can see the 2022 ransomware attacks with millions of dollars of payments to check for more.

Bigger picture:

• According to the "Hacker-Powered Security Report" from HackerOne in 2022, ethical hackers identified more than 65,000 vulnerabilities in that year alone, which is a 21% increase compared to 2021.

• Victims of internet-based crimes suffered a loss of $4.2 billion in the year 2020 and a $13 million average cost for organizations.

• According to Kaspersky Lab, cryptojacking has become increasingly common and has grown by 230% in 2022.

• The "2022 Official Cybercrime Report" sponsored by eSentire predicts that the cost of cybercrime will reach $8 trillion in 2023 and is expected to increase to $10.5 trillion by 2025.

• On average, there are 97 cybercrime victims every hour, resulting in a daily total of 2,328 and 33 billion user accounts will be breached in the year 2023 due to various cyberattacks.

• The estimated worldwide expense of cybercrime is expected to climb up to $8 trillion per year by 2023. 

The extensive lists of victims affected by cybercrime continue to grow, serving as a stark reminder that individuals, companies, and institutions must take data backup seriously. The real-life impact of these incidents is undeniable.

Cybersecurity has never been a survivorship bias game in which you are misled and neglect data protection in the long term. As I mentioned in the 10 anti-ransomware best practices, backup is the proactive measure to be taken against cyber threats, which creates another problem, how to back up your data?

How to Back up Data?

For Individuals:

1.       Transfer your files to a USB or an external hard drive.

Move all the files, images, and videos you have on your desktop or PC to a USB or hard drive. Disconnect the device from your computer to ensure it cannot be hacked.

2.       Use cloud storage.

Nowadays, people prefer to store their important data and files in the cloud, allowing them to check and download the files anytime. Cloud storage services often encrypt the data, and there are many free options available that users can choose from.

3.       Burn your files onto a CD or DVD.

This method may be considered old-fashioned and vulnerable to damage, but it is still an option.

4.       Use the internet.

There are numerous methods available on the internet, such as email, applications, and online cloud services. These options are usually free, and quick, but offer limited storage space unless users purchase memberships.

For Enterprises and Organizations:

Companies of all sizes typically use virtualization technology to secure their customer information, management files, and other important data. Virtualization involves the emulation of a computer system, which creates virtual machines.

The benefits of virtualization abound, such as lower hardware costs, enhanced data security, improved IT efficiency, and portability, attracting users from all walks of life. However, virtual machines are not immune to issues like VM sprawl, hyperjacking, VM escape, or unsecured VM immigration. This is why professional data protection services are critical for companies.

Backup Data with Vinchin Backup & Recovery

Vinchin is a multi-purpose data protection solution that combines agentless backup, recovery, and anti-malware features for all organizations of all sizes. It provides user-friendly installation and configuration within 15m, and a central dashboard to manage all backups and jobs from various platforms.

Having multiple channel resources and responsive technical support, Vinchin is an affordable go-to choice for users with quality services.

No 1 Compatible Backup Solution:

• 12 virtualizations including VMware, XenServer, XCP-ng, Hyper-V, oVirt/RHEV, Oracle OLVM, Sangfor HCI, OpenStack, Huawei FusionCompute, H3C CAS/UIS, and ZStack.

• 6 databases like Oracle DB, MySQL, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Postgres Pro, and MariaDB

• 2 physical servers Linux & Windows Server.

• Unstructured massive files and NAS.

Smart Agentless Backup:

• Automate backup with schedules and email notifications for all job statuses.

• Choose from full, CBT-enabled incremental, forever incremental, and differential backup.

• Enable data deduplication and compression to downsize 50% of backup data.

• Keep data per restore point/day or GFS policy.

• Accelerate backup with multi-thread and HotAdd/SAN transmission.

• Perform block-level image backup.

Data Recovery:

• Restore source VMs to the original or another platform for V2V migration.

• Full recovery brings back the whole VM.

• Instant recovery retrieve crashed system in 15 seconds for minimum RTO and RPO.

• Granular recovery targets specific files/folders to save resources.

• Customize configurations for the VM to be restored.

• Enable multiple transfer lines and SAN transmission for speed.

Anti-Ransomware Features:

• Encrypt backups with AES-256 industry standard and demand passwords for recovery.

• Encrypt the transmission with the SSL technique to secure the transfer.

• Have built-in Anti-Ransomware Backup Storage Protection that denies any unauthorized visits with a real-time monitoring IO.

• Send an offsite backup copy to another location in case of a primary site failure.

• Archive data to public clouds such as Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure, Wasabi, and MinIO.

Conclusion

World Backup Day serves as a reminder for both individuals and organizations who possess digital assets that could face cyber threats in the future. The catchphrase "Don't Be an April Fool. Backup Your Data." highlights the importance of taking proactive measures to safeguard digital information.

With World Backup Day approaching, there's no better time to take the necessary steps to protect your data. Celebrate this day with Vinchin by taking part in our webinar: Backup Your Digital Treasure With Vinchin on YouTube. Prepare your questions and join the live! See you soon!