If you’ve ever spent hours of time, effort and intellectual brilliance creating the perfect document, just under deadline, only to lose it because it wasn’t saved, you’ve learned your lesson. You are now hyper-diligent about clicking your save button, and the existence of a document recovery function provides little comfort. However, you should know that all “saves” are not equal. Your hard work may still be lost if your saved document is stored in the wrong place and if you have failed to back up your data.
There are a number of ways data can be lost. You’ve likely heard about the hot new trend among cybercriminals who access your computer, encrypt your files and demand a ransom payment to restore your data. These ransomware attacks reached 638 million in 2016 — 167 times more than the year prior! Ransomware is a real scourge for businesses of all sizes, but it’s not the only threat to data stored on computers. Other events can cause data loss, including stolen equipment, a power surge that fries your hard drive, a virus, spilled coffee on your laptop, or accidental file deletion. The most basic protection against the consequences of these catastrophic events is to regularly back up your data to a secure location, such as a server or the cloud.
Let’s return to the question of where you are storing your documents. Perhaps you opt for the convenience of your desktop. We understand. The speed of today’s technology has eroded our patience and clicking more than twice to retrieve something can be quite trying. Or, maybe you are protective of your work and shun the shared drive, preferring to store documents in the privacy of your local computer. However, these choices pose risks. You are more likely to lose data because you haven’t properly backed up your data. In most businesses, backups don’t include the data on each computer, but rather the files stored on the shared drive that lives on the server. Therefore, it’s important to ensure that wherever you are putting your data, it is a place that is being backed up so when the unthinkable occurs, your files are retrievable.
In addition to clicking “save,” you may need to re-think your electronic file organization and storage to ensure you are protected from the nightmare of lost data and hard work.