SRC Technologies: To host Challenge IT conference on data security at Lambeau Field on Sept. 13

GREEN BAY, Wis. — With increased attention, cybercrime has adversely impacted individuals and organizations around the world. In particular, a greater frequency of ransomware attacks, in which malicious software cuts off access to a computer system with a demand of money to be paid by the user, is a harsh and costly reminder that protecting personal and business data needs to be a new priority for everyone. The best way to protect data is to have a recoverable backup when data is compromised.

SRC Technologies, a locally managed services provider, strongly recommends that business leaders take a second look at their backup procedures. To help businesses get proactive in backing up and protecting their data, SRC will host the Challenge IT — Securing and Enabling Your Digital Assets conference for executives Sept. 13, 2017, at Lambeau Field in Green Bay.

“Everyone has some sort of backup. But the question is, what if you need to recover must-have data from your backup,” says Brian Oppermann, Senior Systems Engineer with SRC Technologies. “Can it be done within a reasonable time frame to avoid significant business production and revenue loss? It’s not enough to say you perform backups anymore. We recommend a modern backup solution that is managed and can be restored within your determined recovery-time and recovery-point objectives.”

Oppermann says affordable, flexible options are available, such as those offered by Datto Inc., an East Coast firm that provides data-protection and disaster-recovery services to thousands of companies around the world. SRC is a strategic partner of Datto and utilizes Datto’s technology to deliver managed backup solutions that enhance the data-protection needs of midmarket and enterprise businesses.

Oppermann suggests four reasons every business leader should be thinking about data backup:

1. Cybercrime Is Here to Stay: The question is not if, but when will a cybercrime knock at one’s front door. The only way to ensure that an attack can be immediately handled is to implement a regular backup schedule so that the company can get access to the files it needs without having to deal with the cybercriminals. Business leaders must think beyond the backup itself and make sure it is set up in a way that it can’t be compromised. The backup should have certain restrictions, such as read/write permissions without an opportunity to modify or delete the files.

2. It’s Insurance: Every business is required to have insurance to protect itself — liability, property, workers’ compensation, to name a few. A company’s backups are insurance for its data. Today’s businesses cannot function without access to their applications and data. Like an insurance policy, a backup should be a critical part of the overall business plan, and it should scale to make sure business objectives can be met.

3. Human Error Is Inevitable: Not every disaster is broadcast on news and weather channels. Most IT downtime is a result of common, everyday actions, such as accidental data deletion, damage to computer hardware and poor security habits. For example, a recent CompTIA study found that 94% of respondents routinely log into public Wi-Fi despite security risks. And, 69% of this group accesses work-related data over public Wi-Fi. Having technology in place that allows a business to continue operations following these cyber disasters is critically important.

4. Downtime Is Expensive: If employees or customers lose access to business-critical applications and data, there will be a direct impact on productivity and revenue. While this sounds obvious, many organizations don’t consider the actual costs of downtime. To better understand this cost, consider the following example using Datto’s Recovery Time (RTO) calculator. (http://tools.datto.com/rto/) A business has 100 employees, its average hourly revenue is $1,500, and the backup data set amounts to 2 TB. Given these parameters, a full restore from a local backup (assuming it works) would take over 8 hours. The associated downtime cost would amount to $34,000 in lost revenue. Some modern backup products like Datto offer the ability to run applications from backup instances of virtual servers. This allows users to continue operations while primary application servers are restored.

The Challenge IT — Securing and Enabling Your Digital Assests conference will be held from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2017, at Lambeau Field in Green Bay. Business executives interested in learning more about the conference and attending the event can go to http://www3.srctechnologies.com/ChallengeIT2017 or call SRC Technologies at 920-965-8060