Data is the lifeblood of any organisation – it drives decision-making, supports innovation, and ensures business continuity.
By Aslam Tajbhai, head of solutions at DMP SA
But with this reliance on digital solutions comes an increasing risk of cyberattacks, data breaches, and accidental loss, which can cripple a business overnight. The key to mitigating these risks lies in ongoing education.
By continuously training employees in data backup, disaster recovery planning, and cybersecurity awareness, businesses can build resilience, enhance their ability to prevent data loss, and respond effectively to crises.
Data as the foundation of business resilience
One of the most effective ways to safeguard business-critical data is through regular and secure backups. A well-structured backup strategy ensures that data is not only available when needed but also protected against cyber threats like ransomware.
The 3-2-1 backup strategy is a longstanding global best practice: maintaining three copies of data, stored in two different locations, with one immutable copy off-site.
Another time-tested method is the grandfather-father-son backup policy, which retains daily, weekly, and monthly backups to ensure long-term data availability.
However, having a backup strategy is only effective if employees understand how it works and why it is essential.
Organisations must invest in training staff to grasp the importance of backup frequency, encryption, and testing. Without regular testing, backups are as good as non-existent – businesses must simulate real-world scenarios to verify that their recovery systems work as intended.
Preparing for the worst
Disaster recovery (DR) planning is a critical component of any business reliance strategy, but a DR plan is more than just a static document. It is a lifeline when an organisation faces unexpected downtime or data loss. Employees must be trained to classify data based on importance, prioritising critical systems (such as finance, customer databases, and operational infrastructure) over less crucial ones.
Understanding Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs), which represent how quickly data must be restored, and Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs), which are essentially how much data loss is acceptable, ensures that organisations can recover efficiently after a crisis.
One common mistake businesses make is in failing to distinguish between disaster recovery and cyber recovery. In reality, these are two distinct areas, where DR means restoring operations after a physical failure or natural disaster, and cyber recovery is the ability to recover from a cyberattack, ensuring that restored data is clean and uncompromised.
Cyber recovery requires a far more forensic approach, where backups are tested in a secure environment before being reintegrated into business systems. This distinction is critical and must be embedded in an organisation’s training programmes.
The human firewall
While cybersecurity awareness should not be the sole focus of data protection training, it remains a crucial component of a business’s resilience. Employees are often the first line of defence against cyber threats such as phishing, malware, and ransomware. Providing regular cybersecurity training ensures that they can identify and respond to suspicious activity, reducing the risk of human error leading to data breaches.
However, investing in education does not stop at internal training. Businesses can benefit from collaborating with industry partners and accessing specialised training programmes. Online courses, in-house simulations, and even university programmes offer valuable knowledge in data management and security.
To measure the success of training initiatives, organisations should use pre- and post-training assessments, involve trained employees in disaster recovery tests, and track improvements in response times and data protection compliance. A well-educated workforce leads to a more secure digital environment, ensuring that businesses are prepared for whatever challenges lie ahead.
Education is not an optional extra
Investing in continuous education in data management and recovery is not an option, it is a necessity. By equipping employees with the knowledge to safeguard data, respond effectively to crises, and maintain a secure digital environment, businesses strengthen their resilience against evolving threats.
Data protection is not a one-time exercise but an ongoing process that requires continuous learning and adaptation. Organisations that prioritise education in data backup, disaster recovery, and cybersecurity will be well positioned to protect their most valuable asset: their data. In an era where digital threats evolve daily, knowledge is not just power, it is protection.