Cloud Disaster Recovery: 72% Of Financial Organisations "Extremely Concerned"

Large numbers of financial organisations are gravely worried about the security of data in the cloud and how easily it can be recovered should an infiltration occur.

A study by Vanson Bourne, commissioned by NCC Group, found 72 per cent of financial organisations are “extremely concerned about data not being backed up and problems with disaster recovery”.

Of those that aren’t already using a cloud service to store or handle data, 40 per cent don’t do so because of a fear that a sudden huge loss of data could take place at any time.

“As we saw with collapsed data centre provider 2e2 last year, without a proper disaster recovery plan a company can quickly fall to its knees,” said Daniel Liptrott, managing director of NCC Group’s escrow division, according to Cloud Pro. “However, there are comprehensive backup solutions available to those using cloud applications, so businesses needn’t shy away from cloud adoption due to fear of data loss as long as they take necessary precautions.”

Most financial institutions don’t have an effective plan should anything go wrong with 74 per cent admitting it would take more than a week to implement a contingency plan and five per cent think it would take between two and three months.

“In a sector where time equates to large sums of money, organisations should ensure that they have comprehensive and effective disaster recovery plans in place to avoid costly delays if something goes wrong,” Liptrott added.

Companies that work with highly sensitive data, such as those in the financial sector, are right to be worried about data, though this can easily be addressed by choosing the right supplier that offers the correct level of security. This will mean that the flexibility of the cloud ultimately outweighs the risk and means less chance that a catastrophic data loss will occur.

Image Credit: Flickr (Alexander Steinhof)