Cloud storage services such as Google Workspace and Microsoft Office 365 are not backup solutions by themselves and can be vulnerable to ransomware attacks.

If you are using cloud storage services such as these to centralise your business data, you still need to have this data backed-up locally or with a separate cloud backup service.

To recover from an incident such as a ransomware attack, it is essential that your backup system includes storage that is immutable or air gapped.

• Immutable backup storageis designed so that files cannot be modified once they are backed-up. A well-designed cloud back up service should provide immutable storage (for example, https://www.backupify.com/ and https://afi.ai/).
• Air-gapped storageis physically disconnected from any computer network. For example, an external hard drive that is switched off and disconnected from any computer or network is considered air gapped.

Your backup system should be regularly tested to make sure it can be relied up on in case of a data loss incident. Backups can be manually tested by restoring data to a location such as new folder, and attempting to open, use and save data as you would in the normal course of business.

To create an effective backup system, use the action plan provided [LINK TO DATA BACKUP ACTION PLAN PDF]. This will guide you through the process of:

• identifying and locating your critical data sets
• deciding on how often this data should be backed-up
• choosing a suitable method of backing up the data
• testing your backups.