Q & A with the Expert

James Barnett, Senior IT Engineer and Cloud Back-up Expert at Active8 IT answers common questions relating to Data Back-up.

  
We are currently using tapes to back up all of our data on a daily basis. Is this ok? I am concerned that things may be lost.

This is one of the most common issues documented and an important question. It is essential to regularly perform test restores and validate what is actually backed-up. With tape backups this is quite often overlooked, due to the nature of the media it can be time consuming especially as tapes may need to be couriered back to site.

Another issue is that many companies that use tapes and don’t actually take them offsite, which can lead potentially full data loss if the premises were to have a fire etc.

We are thinking of using a Cloud Back Up service provider. How and when is the Data backed up?

Software is installed on an existing on-site server or a dedicated backup server. The required servers and data can then be selected for backup. The backup server simply needs relevant user credentials and network access to the data required.

The backups can be configured to run as and when is appropriate to meet your requirements and there is also the capability to manage the bandwidth usage for offsiting of data. Another advantage of the software is automatic updating which is centrally controlled by your service provider so no user input is required.

What if I need to retrieve my data, how quickly can this happen?

There are 3 methods of retrieval

Local storage retrieval: this is most commonly just the latest generation of a file and is held on the your site for very rapid LAN or DAS speed recovery.

Offsite internet retrieval: any data to be restored that is not local can be retrieved over the internet and the speed here is almost virtually dependent upon internet connection due to the very high speed links in the data centre.

Offsite couriered retrieval: If a very large restore is required you can also request a “DisktoTape” which means required data would be extracted using an automated system and encrypted data can be shipped for local retrieval.

We have a large amount of Financial Data, can this be compressed? How safe will it be?

Ensure that you use a provider that hosts your data in this country using their  own equipment so no third parties have access to data and cannot get hold of data. The backups should be encrypted ranging from DES 56bit up to AES-256.

  The majority of data can be compressed with some formats reaching an 8:1 ratio and due to the incremental forever methodology the effective compression becomes more noticeable over time as only delta changes are sent.

If you have any specific questions regarding this, we are happy to help. Contact info@active8it.co.uk

This weeks around up - eating cake and talking about Llamas

This week in the world of Active8 has been a damn good one!!

One of our highly regarded clients, the baby superstore, Kiddicare have been shortlisted for the IT Team of the Year award by BT Retail Week Technology Awards. We are so proud that we are involved in Kiddicare's IT Support and Nationwide Store opening's. It’s fantastic to see that they are going from strength to strength.

Further to this we had a great day yesterday at the Huntingdonshire Business Fair, it was nice to see so many people there and thanks to Moore Stephens, Borney and Huntingdon Racecourse for our fix of sweet treats - the Cake Cups were lovely. I think we may have had too much sugar though as there was talk of adopting an Llama from Wood Green to be our new Active8 mascot!!

Finally, we have had a new addition to the team this week, IT Helpdesk Technician- Andy Wilder. A big welcome from all of us.

Phew!! it has been an 'Active' week - pardon the pun!

Malware trends for the remainder of 2013

What trends can we expect in 2013?

As we have discussed in our previous Blog – Malware is an unwanted entity that costs businesses more and more money year on year, so what can we ultimately expect to see as 2013 progresses?

Stealing personal data from mobile phones has been on the increase for a number of years now, just last week BBC has highlighted how this is a serious risk. Malware poses this very same threat to business data and this criminal activity is set to increase 10 fold in 2013.

Juniper Research estimate’s that in 2013 the number of users accessing banking services from their mobiles will rise to 520 million people compared to approx. 300 million in 2012. This rapid growth lends itself to malicious attacks as programmes are developed rapidly and become more complex, in order to extract the financial information stored on Mobile devices.

In addition to this 2013 will see a shift in how threats are generated. Web servers will be used as intermediaries’ more than ever before and once compromised they will be employed to send out hyperlinks which will link to the Malware in question, all the stolen information will be stored on this compromised server this way not involving the thieves personal computers – this way avoiding detection.

Considering this, what trends will we see for the rest of the year… Mobile, Mobile, and more mobile?

Since 2010, mobile malware has been slowly creeping up in number and complexity. This has happened in line with the growth in use of smart devices, particularly as the Android operating system positioned itself as the most popular mobile operating system in the market worldwide. In 2011 Android became the most targeted operating system and threats increased to that of almost double compared to IOS. 

This of course makes sense, as their market rose, more and more people were using this platform to store personal, corporate and financial log in’s/information. The cybercriminals in turn developed Malware in order to steal this information and use it for their own financial gain.

So will this trend continue?

 Since the launch of devices like the IPhone - the smartphone and tablet market has rapidly evolved in several areas: foremost technology, market, connectivity and infrastructure. This technology is allowing for smartphones to buck the trend of ‘traditional’ computers as a whole and the smartphone/ tablet market segment has experienced a year-on-year growth rate of up to 66%

It is therefore not difficult to see why Cyber criminals are focussing their efforts in this area. As numbers are on the up, these criminals will want to attack this prosperous area to gain the highest financial benefits while they can.

In addition to the rise in device sales, the number of mobile Apps downloaded have drastically increased over the course of time, and of course these are becoming a target for this malicious code.

Another factor that may reinforce this trend of mobile malware is Bring Your Own Device. BYOD is becoming increasingly popular in many regions around the world, we cannot say weather this trend is in for the long-haul but it is a worry that a company's employees can carry and use personal devices such as laptops, smartphones and tablets within the corporate day to day. Therefore vast amounts of data and sensitive information will be stored onto these devices, consequently BYOD could pose a grave security problem, if companies do not have a robust Anti- malware system in place.

Taking all of this information in to account it would be an intelligent assumption that throughout 2013 and beyond, mobile malware will evolve and be proportionate to and in parallel with technology; in other words, if the technology has become widely used and constitutes a part of everyday life, threats for such devices will follow close behind. The outlook is that the Android-based malicious code is the main trend for computer threats in 2013, with this being increasingly by means of Malware generation that takes power of compromised sites.

The challenge for users generally will remain the same as previous years. Adopting security solutions on their PCs is paramount and furthermore Mobile security will become crucial. Users must also to become aware of information security issues affecting this type of technology they use on a day to day basis