Online data backups are NOT a breeze
By Greg George
CEO
Spinal Cord Resources Network
Online backup services are cropping up all over the Internet. They promise to make backups easier to do and storage and maintenance is all handled by the hosting company. This sounds like a real answer to the gigabytes that are never backed up on personal computers everywhere. Those of us that are the computer resource for computer problems routinely are stuck trying to repair dead hard drives because years of letters, data and pictures are stored there. Of course no one ever does backups so we are stuck trying to pry data off of a bare metal drive. Any backup is better then none at all - right? Not when you give all your personal documents to an unknown entity.
All these backup services have some kind of free aspect where you can dump several gigabytes of your most prized possession, pictures, letters and whatnot on their servers. That is very nice but companies must make money to save your mountain of data on their servers for free. How exactly does a company give you 2 gigabytes of space for free on real rack mounted servers in protected air conditioned rooms watched over by high paid technicians? By rifling through your data and then using that information to send you advertisements either through snail mail or spam in your inbox. So now your person information is known by the backup company as well as their “partners”. Are all of these companies trustworthy? Are they safe from hacking and data loss?
None of these companies explain what they can do with your data and what measures they are taking to protect your assets. If there is a break in will the company let you know what was stolen in a timely fashion? Some states have laws that force companies to tell customers when their data has been compromised, but most do not. Plus companies have a nasty tendency to never tell anyone of a break in. Last month the University of Miami lost a backup tape that had the personal information of 2 million patients. The university waited until media sources broke the story to let anyone know what happened. Supposedly they were going to let all those patients know what happened, but some are still waiting for their letter. It is expected that because of HIPAA guidelines medical data is to be protected, but obviously companies and universities don’t care about what happens to your information.
All of your backups could be stolen by hackers and they could sell that information to those involved in banking fraud. Suddenly you would find out your bank accounts are all emptied and your banks have no information on what happened. The onus is up to you to prove illegal purchases are not from you and that you are the victim of data theft. This is all the more complicated if the backup company you use has been hacked but they refuse to acknowledge the attack. This doesn’t leave many options to the individual except to sue the online backup company to release all information tied to hacking and data loss. That type of case could take years to complete and cost you tens of thousands of dollars. And this is just to get an admittance of a problem, not any remedies or money to pay you back for all your losses.
This hornet’s nest of problems proves that the last place to store your data is online. The data on our hard drive is valuable to you and it may be impossible to replace it. Your hard drive is a mechanical device that will fail eventually leaving you with no way to access the data on it. This scenario is easy to avoid by purchasing an inexpensive extyernal hard drive and some software to store your information. Now you control when backups are done, what is stored, how it is stored, and who has access to it. In an emergency like a hurricane you can grab the drive andbring it with you. That way if your house is damaged or destroyed our data is safe. Keep your data safe and secure by taking responskbility to save t yourself on your own equipment. This beats the alternative of the hackers and online thieves owning your data and selling it for their own purposes.
