You’re looking toward the future – you have marketing plans, sales plans and growth plans. But do you have an IT disaster recovery plan? Devoting time and resources toward preparing for the worst-case scenario may not seem like a priority – but by the time it is, you could be too late. Consider these 2017 disaster recovery statistics:

• 90 percent: The number of businesses without a recovery plan that fail following a disaster
• $926 to $17,244: Cost per minute of unexpected downtime for businesses
• 1 in 3: The number of businesses unprepared for a disaster because of outdated or inadequate recovery plans
• $1 million+: Average cost of a cyber breach

Your business doesn’t need to become a statistic. Learn from three major threats that companies faced in 2017:

Natural Disasters

What We Saw in 2017: Hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding and wildfires closed, damaged or destroyed thousands of businesses. Computers, servers and other hardware were lost, along with any data stored on them. Workers were forced to evacuate, and unsafe conditions kept them from working on-site long after disasters were contained.

What You Can Do: Back up, back up, back up – migrating your data to the cloud ensures that critical information won’t be permanently lost and can be easily recovered in the event of a disaster. If possible, establish a business continuity plan for how and where employees will work when your offices are inaccessible.

Cyber Attacks and Data Breaches

What We Saw in 2017: The WannaCry Ransomware attack left hackers with control of more than 200,000 computers in 150 countries. They targeted a weakness in outdated software, and many businesses that paid the ransom did not report receiving their data back. Equifax took three months to discover a breach in their systems that compromised the sensitive data of 145 million consumers.

What You Can Do: Installing the latest updates on your software as soon as they’re available can keep you from becoming a ransomware target – and storing your data safely in a secondary location like the cloud means hackers can’t use your locked-down data to extort you. Constant, proactive monitoring for data breaches enables you to seal them quickly and minimize damage to your business and customers.

Employee Negligence

What We Saw in 2017: Hundreds of sites were interrupted or went offline in February when an Amazon Web Services employee made a mistake while debugging a web hosting server. For small to medium-sized businesses, employee negligence is the leading cause of data breaches.

What You Can Do: Start by empowering your team with end-to-end cyber security training – but remember that a tired or rushed employee can still make a costly and time-consuming error. Reinforce your defenses with strong password requirements and redundant processes that protect your vital data.

When a disaster strikes your business, do you want to scramble for a fix, or do you want to feel secure and confident with an expertly-designed IT disaster recovery plan? Contact us now and ask how we can disaster-proof your business.