The Bay Area IT Experts

What Makes a Data Backup Such an Important Asset?

In a word: insurance.

Data is, as we’ve well established, a crucial component to your business’ continued operations and survival. Tons of it is generated, collected, stored, and updated each day to support our daily lives. If a business were to lose the data that it had accumulated, it would suddenly find itself in a very bad spot.

This is what makes the idea of a data backup such a good one—in many cases, it is this backup that keeps a business from going under. Of course, this requires that the data backup be properly maintained as well.

To put themselves in the position that offers the most success, we generally recommend that businesses prepare their data backups in accordance with the 3-2-1 Rule.

What is the 3-2-1 Rule of Data Backup?

Simple: keep at least three copies of your data, in two mediums or formats, at least one copy of which kept off site and separate from the others.

Why multiple copies? Multiple copies ensure that—should one of your backups become corrupted or infected or otherwise infiltrated, you have a spare or two to fall back on. While we say three, three should really be considered the bare minimum.

Why multiple formats or mediums? Well, consider what would happen if you made yourself two lunches in case it rained, but packed both into a paper bag. With both in a paper bag, the backup lunch would end up equally soggy as the original lunch. Keeping your backup in a different format or storage medium helps prevent it from being impacted by the same thing that damages the original.

Why the offsite version? Keeping a backup offsite helps to ensure that—even if a disaster were to completely annihilate your business’ physical location—the data you rely on would still be accessible to you by virtue of the data backup. This gives us something else that is important to consider: the concept of an “air gap” in terms of data security.

What is an “Air Gap?”

Let’s go back to our “backup lunch” example, for a moment. While having an extra lunch was a good idea—our example made it clear why—keeping it so close to the original removed its benefits. However, if we were to take the same concept of having a backup lunch and add in an air gap (keeping an extra lunch in the break room at work, or stashing a few bucks to order something out, perhaps), we removed the threat of a single disaster preventing us from eating.

In terms of the data on your network, an air gap is just that—physical distance and separation helping to isolate resources and protect them from many threats.

415 IT is here to help businesses like yours manage all the complexities of their technology so that you have more room to succeed. Give us a call at (415) 295-4898 today to find out more.

This simply isn’t a convenient enough option for today’s productivity-focused workflows. Instead, let’s go over how to use Windows’ integrated Snip & Sketch tool, which gives you greater functionality at comparable ease.

Using Snip & Sketch

Snip & Sketch is a utility that offers four options for you to use in terms of your screenshots and can be easily called up by pressing Windows Key+Shift+S. There, you’ll have access to four different screenshot format options at the top of your screen:

1. A basic box selection, where you click and drag to encompass your selection
2. A freeform selection that allows you to draw out your boundary
3. Window snip, which allows you to select an active monitor to screenshot
4. Fullscreen snip, which takes the place of the Print Screen key and allows you to take a picture of all your monitors simultaneously

Any of these can be useful in the right situation, and these situations are only too common in the workplace.

Hopefully, this will help you communicate more clearly in the office, using images to help get the message across. For more handy tips and other useful IT information, make sure you check back here every so often—and don’t forget to give our team a call at (415) 295-4898 for more direct assistance from us!

Creating Strong Passwords 

It’s true that passwords can be a pain to manage. Anyone who has been locked out of an account because they can’t remember their password knows this all too well. That’s why it is important to create passwords that are both easy to remember and that are secure enough to protect you. Cybercriminals have tools at their disposal that do a pretty good job of being able to crack passwords, so you need to keep that in mind when you are choosing yours. 

As you set out to create your passwords, you should keep the following two points of emphasis in mind. 

1. A hacker may try to brute force attack any password that cannot be guessed or cracked, rapidly trying each combination possible.
2. A password’s security and its resistance to brute force attacks are two different things.

Brute force attacks can really be devastating, but when you create your passwords, you have to keep in mind that any hacker with the will to brute force your computing network and left with the time to complete their hack, will likely find a way into your network. What you are doing when you are selecting a strong, memorable password is trying to make certain that the only way they are cracking your password is through brute force.

Typically we like to encourage that your passwords meet the following metrics:

• Are longer, typically over 16 characters
• Use a combination of numerals, letters (with upper and lower case characters), and symbols
• Don’t use privileged or personal information, or any information that can be tied to you through online searches
• No common words or numbers
• No consecutive letters or numbers

So How Do You Optimize Your Password’s Effectiveness?

With those practices, you will be pretty far along, but you also have to understand that the hackers’ tools are extremely powerful. That’s why on top of those suggestions, you will also want to add some complexity to your passwords. Studies have shown that about 41 percent of all passwords are composed exclusively of lowercase letters. If we have access to this information, it stands to reason that someone who makes a living breaking into networks and stealing data knows it as well. Therefore, along with adding symbols, varying cases, and numerals, one strategy is to use a passphrase of random words. 

The reason for this is that, with a password that looks like this “7i&3RkIn&4L1f3” the chances that you remember it if you use the account sparingly is pretty low. Besides, it is not that secure, as it is effectively a complex sentence. Remember, the hacker has to get your password completely correct to effectively gain access, so instead of trying to come up with intricate ways of typing statements that can be easily guessed, try taking three words that don’t have any natural connection, incorporating numbers and some varying capitalization, and padding either side with symbols.

A process like this makes the password more usable. It very likely won’t be guessed, is long enough to protect your account, is effective against the brute force attack, and will be easier for you to remember. 

Speaking of which, since you shouldn’t use the same password for multiple accounts, you will end up with dozens of passwords. Keeping them straight, especially over the long haul (as you will likely have to reset passwords from time to time), is difficult. That’s why we recommend using a password manager. Many people take advantage of the password saving feature inside their browser. This is effective, but we recommend using a third-party manager that features encryption. This tool will be the most secure and reliable; and, you won’t have to worry about remembering every password. 

At 415 IT, we consider cybersecurity one of the most important parts of a business’ IT strategy. Give us a call a (415) 295-4898 to see how we can help you keep your IT assets safe.