Backup, Disaster Recovery Just As Important As Insurance

The UK government is working on raising awareness among small and medium enterprises on the dangers of not being insured in case of a cyber attack, but secure infrastructure provider Databarracks says having proper backup and disaster recovery plans set up are equally as important.

The government issued a report recently, stating that only two per cent of the UK’s large companies are insured in case of an attack. This is despite the fact that 81 per cent of companies suffered some form of breach in the past 12 months.

To address this, the government has urged insurance companies to help champion better cyber security practices by raising awareness of cyber insurance amongst enterprise and SME communities. In addition to cyber insurance, Peter Groucutt, Managing Director of disaster recovery provider Databarracks, states firms can further protect themselves by implementing effective disaster recovery and business continuity practices across their business.

Groucutt applauds the government’s efforts, but adds that it’s the companies who need to protect themselves by creating disaster recovery plans:

“It’s great to see the government taking a much more pragmatic approach to cyber security by engaging with the likes of the insurance sector to drive good cyber security practices but there is a lot that firms can do to protect themselves too,” he said.

“Looking back at the findings from our annual Data Health Check survey, the results revealed only 30 per cent of SMEs from a sample of 400 IT professionals had an IT disaster recovery (DR) plan in place. When you consider how reliant businesses are on their IT infrastructure, it’s a staggering reality and raises the question: why?”

“This type of protection will have businesses up and running again in the same way as if they had faced a physical threat like a fire, flood or damage to their IT,” Groucutt concluded.