EXPERT OPINION
Michael Cade , Senior Global Technologist , Veeam the next 12 months is cyberthreats ( 31 %). Over half ( 51 %) have a ‘ protection gap ’ between how frequently data is backedup versus how much data they can afford to lose after an outage . Given the vastly increased threat vector and risk to data systems in light of the remote working trend , organisations must ensure they have a robust cloud data management strategy in place to ensure data is backed up , protected and recoverable across all devices and applications .
Employee best practices and training are vital to this – helping IT teams ensure that users are connected via the VPN and storing company data in secure commonplace – even for organisations who previously had little to no track record of supporting remote working – the cyberattack vector will remain high . It is therefore critical that businesses have a clear strategy for managing data across their cloud and data provisioning . This includes ensuring data is backed up at all times , recoverable in the event of a disaster , outage or cyberattack and as protected from external malicious threats as possible . ◊
IT IS . . . CRITICAL THAT BUSINESSES HAVE A CLEAR STRATEGY FOR MANAGING DATA ACROSS THEIR CLOUD AND DATA PROVISIONING .
of how to work from home in a secure manner , according to the IBM study . IT departments often have little to zero visibility of whether or not employees are connecting to the VPN , particularly when employees are using personal devices . Furthermore , personal devices aren ’ t just being used outside the data centre ’ s four walls , but in family home environments and shared households . Not only do IT teams have far less control over the apps , websites , content their employees are engaging with , there is no guarantee they are the only person using that device . While the organisation might not have visibility of data now being stored and used outside of the four walls , it is still ultimately responsible for it .
According to the Veeam 2020 Data Protection Trends Report , the number one challenge that will impact Middle East and African ( MEA ) organisations within cloud environments rather than personal accounts or their own desktops . The Veeam report goes on to show that on average , 19 % of Middle East and African organisations ’ data is not backed up . If data cannot be backed up , it is not protected and in the event of unplanned downtime or a cyberbreach , that data will be unrecoverable . Moreover , organisations are adopting Software-as-a-Service ( SaaS ) solutions in their droves . For example , Microsoft Teams grew from 32 million users to 72 million between March 2019 and April 2020 . For businesses using SaaS solutions such as Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Office 365 , backups of data need to be conducted on a continuous basis – either on premises or in cloud object storage . This will protect the business against a single point of failure that is outside their control .
As a combination of working from home and from offices becomes increasingly
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