Global cyberattacks on corporate networks increased by 50% in 2021 compared to 2022¸ according to the Security Report 2022 prepared by Check Point Software Technologies.
Online backups can help companies working in increasingly digital ways to protect their data – including against losing it all to a ransomware attack. In early 2021, Interpol reported that South Africa was the country most heavily affected by targeted ransomware in Africa.
Today, the cloud is becoming one of the most convenient platforms for backups due to its numerous advantages. Check Point Software Technologies points out that backing up data in the cloud can result in:
* Greater scalability: With hard drives, the number of backups that can be stored will always have a limit due to capacity. On the network this does not happen, as cloud providers have a wide range of storage flexibility. As more capacity is needed, services can be scaled up. Depending on how much information a company has at any given time, data backup needs can be adjusted.
* More autonomy: when a company uses a remote backup service provider, it doesn’t need to have knowledge on how to perform backups, or extra training to execute the processes. These will be carried out automatically by the service provider, with the frequency that has been previously set.
* Freedom to back up from any location: the traditional way of making backups was saving data to physical devices (floppy disks, hard disks, CDs, USBs etc.). These devices, however, can be damaged, corrupted, lost or stolen. In addition, these devices are often stored in the office itself. If an incident occurs, the information could be lost. Remote cloud backups have the advantage of being in a different location.
* Encrypted and protected data: physical storage devices can be damaged by misuse or system failure, and all the data can be lost. This is something that does not happen in the cloud. The information is stored on private servers that prevent any type of failure thanks to their technology. Likewise, all the cloud’s systems are equipped with security and advanced encryption protocols.
* Simplicity of file sharing: the tools available in the cloud usually include HTML5 programs that run directly in the browser. This means that your users do not need any specific software to access and edit files. Moreover, they allow multiple and simultaneous editing in real time. This opportunity to work online as a group has made corporate tasks easier and has made it possible to avoid wasting time in certain meetings. By simply sharing a link, everyone can open the document and edit it if necessary. This facilitates remote working and the convenience of workers, which is one of the main goals of cloud technology.
“Technological progress has led more and more companies to start using new technologies to increase their productivity or to facilitate their daily tasks,” says Pankaj Bhula, regional director for Africa at Check Point Software Technologies. “Their use has led to the massive collection of data and the need to have a place to store it securely has arisen.
“With cloud backup, company data and applications are protected by a server in a remote location. In this way, companies can have the capacity to save and preserve, at the same time, the data of their own corporation and that of their clients from anywhere, avoiding the loss of this data in the event of any technological failure or cyber-attack.”