Techiebytes

It is common for data security folks to tell you to be careful about what data you keep online and the risks associated. But, I’m here to tell you why you should keep some of your data online. Because, while you should be careful about what data you put online – you should be careful about what you don’t.

Consider the unpleasant scenario – a home robbery, house fire, storm, flood or some other loss. After the event you will need access to insurance documents, home photos and other important data. Now assume that you stored all that information on your home computer – all that information is now lost, and recovering it has just become much more difficult.

“But wait!” you say, “I keep all my data backed-up and stored in a fire safe so I’ll be alright.” You need to be careful with this assumption and should be aware of some facts:

1. Thieves like stealing safes – they assume that you have something valuable inside that they want. 
2. Fire safes are rated to a specific temperature for a specific amount of time – but the temperatures that are reached inside – while relatively safe for paper documents, at least for the rated period of time – can be catastrophic for your data storage media (backup tapes, CDs/DVDs, flash drives and pretty much all other media are susceptible to heat).
3. Water, used by the fire department or the result of some act of Mother Nature, can cause damage to both your digital storage media and your paper documents within a safe. So even if you have taken measures to protect your data at home – it may not be quite enough.

No one wants to think that events like these might occur to them, but unfortunately no one is immune from the possibility. Preparation gives you the possibility to mitigate your risk in these situations. To help yourself prepare for some sort of catastrophic event like this I suggest that you look into keeping copies of your important data online. You may want to consider using an online document management service or one of the many online backup services avaialbe. Most online backup services provide reasonable protection of your data through encryption and other measures, and are a relatively safe (there is no such thing as perfect) means to protect your data from loss or theft – and will still be available to you should some catastrophic loss at home occur.

So remember, while you may not want to advertise information about yourself or put compromising data on the Internet, you really don’t want to avoid putting data up for that reason. With proper consideration most data can be reasonably secured online – and your disaster recovery solution could be considered an investment in your own future well being,