A.6. Backup Management

If there is something you can take from real estate success and apply to security success, it is this: location, location, location. Now, you might want to change that to backup, backup, backup, but even keeping the original still stresses an important point. Backups are your only insurance against data loss. Without a backup, it is impossible to restore data. However, even the best backups are worthless if you do not protect them against damage or loss in the event of an intrusion, incident, or disaster. Thus, offsite storage of backups is essential. A backup site should be far enough away from the main site that it is not affected by the same disaster. You need to understand your organization's backup strategy and do your best to support it; ensure that every bit of data that is important to the company is ultimately stored on a server that is included in the regular backup system of the network. It is not enough to make your own local backup; you need to let the company backup system protect the company data. If you make local backups for personal data or in-progress projects, that should be seen as a supplement protection, not as a primary protection.