The 5 Most Deadly and Costly Mistakes Small Business Owners Make With Data Security and Back Ups

After working with over hundreds of small and mid-size businesses in the San Diego area, we found that 6 out of 10 businesses will experience some type of major network or technology disaster that will end up costing them between $9,000 to $60,000 in repairs and restoration costs on average. That doesn’t even include lost productivity, sales, and client good-will that can be damaged when a company can’t operate or fulfill on its promises due to a down network.

What’s most exasperating about this situation is that 100% of these disasters and restoration costs could have been completely avoided easily and inexpensively.

I have found that most small business owners have no idea of the importance of regular preventative maintenance, disaster recovery planning and prevention because they are already swamped with more immediate day-to-day fires demanding their attention. If their network is working fine today, it goes to the bottom of the pile of things to worry about.  Therefore, no one is watching to make sure the back ups are working, the virus protection is up-to-date, or that the network is “healthy.”

Why Small Business Are Especially Vulnerable To These Disasters

With the constant changes to technology and daily development of new threats, it takes a highly-trained technician to maintain even a simple 3-5 person network. The costs of hiring a full-time IT person are just not feasible for the small business owner. In an attempt to save money, most try to do their own in-house IT support and designate the person with the most technical expertise as the part-time IT manager. This never works out because this make-shift IT person has another full-time job to do and isusually not skilled enough to properly support an entire computer network anyway.  This inevitably results in a network that is ill-maintained and unstable. It also means that the backups, virus updates, and security patches are not getting timely updates, or may even be set up improperly giving a false sense of security.

Step#1: Make Sure You Are Backing Up Your System

It just amazes me how many businesses never back up their computer network.  Imagine this: you write the most important piece of information you could ever write on a chalk board and I come along and erase it. How are you going to get it back? You’re not.  Unless you can remember it, or if YOU MADE A COPY OF IT, you can’t recover the data.  It’s gone. That is why it is so important to back up your network. There are a number of things that could cause you to lose data files. If the information on the disk is important to you, make sure you have more than one copy of it.

Step #2: Perform A Complete Data Restore To Make Sure Your Backups Are Working Properly

This is another big mistake I see. Many business owners set up some type of backup system, but then never check to make sure it’s working properly. It’s not uncommon for a system to APPEAR to be backing up when in reality, it’s not.

Step #3: Keep An Offsite Copy Of Your Backups

What happens if a fire or flood destroys your server AND the back up tapes or drive?  What happens if your office gets robbed and they take EVERYTHING? Having an off-site back up is simply a smart way to make sure you have multiple, redundant copies of your data.

Step #4: Make Sure Your Virus Scanner Is ALWAYS On And Up-To-Date

You would have to be living under a rock to not know how devastating a virus can be to your network. With virus attacks coming from spam, downloaded data and music files, web sites, and even emails from friends, you cannot afford to not be protected.  Not only can a virus corrupt your files and bring down your network, but it can hurt  your reputation. If you or one of your employees unknowingly spreads a virus to a customer, or if the virus hijacks your email address book, you’re going to make a lot of people very angry.

Step #5: Set Up A Firewall

Small business owners tend to think that because they are “just a small business,” no one would waste time trying to hack in to their network. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve conducted experiments were I connected a single computer to the internet with no firewall. Within hours, over 13 gigabytes of space was taken over with malicious code and files that I could not delete. The simple fact is there are thousands of unscrupulous individuals out there who think its fun to disable your computer just because they can.

These individuals strike randomly by searching the internet for open, unprotected ports. As soon as they find one, they will delete files or download huge files that cannot be deleted, shutting down your hard drive. They can also use your computer as a zombie for storing pirated software or sending spam which will cause your ISP to shut YOU down and prevent you from accessing the Internet or sending and receiving email. If the malicious programs can’t be deleted, you’ll have to re-format the entire hard drive, causing you to lose every piece of information you’ve ever owned UNLESS you were backing up your files properly (see 1-3 above).

How Disaster-Proof Is YOUR Network?

FREE Security Audit Reveals The Truth

Hopefully this report acted as an eye opener to all small business owners who are not adequately protecting their data and computer network. If you are not doing the 5 steps outlined in this report, your network is an accident waiting to happen and the most important thing for you to do now is take immediate action towards protecting yourself.  One of the biggest, costliest mistakes you can make is to ignore this advice with the false hope that such a disaster could never happen to you.

Because you have taken time to request and read this report, I would like to help you make sure your company is safe from harm by offering you a FREE 68-Point Problem Prevention Network Audit. Normally I charge $500 for this type of audit, but during the months of January and February 2011, I’ll make room in my schedule to give away 12 of these to small business owners in San Diego that are concerned about keeping their network and data safe.

During this audit I will come on site and…

• Pinpoint any exposure or risk to potential lapses in security, data backup, power outages, and system downtime.
• Review your system backups to make sure the data CAN be recovered in case of a disaster. You don’t want to discover that your back ups were corrupt AFTER a major disaster wiped out your network.
• Scan your network for hidden spyware and viruses that hackers “plant” in your network to steal information, deliver spam, and track your online activities.
• Outline a powerful and comprehensive line of defense against even the most evasive and deadly computer viruses, hackers, and spam for your specific network.
• Answer any questions you have about your network or keeping it running problem free. I can also give you a second opinion on any projects you are considering.

Upon completion of this audit, we’ll give you a detailed report in plain English that outlines where you are at high risk for viruses, downtime, or other problems, and discuss what options you have for protecting yourself.

To secure your audit, please fill out the form below and someone will contact you shortly.