Cloud Disaster Recovery For Lawyers

9/15/2013

Cloud Disaster Recovery For Lawyers

Disasters happen every day and they never wait until you are fully prepared or expecting them. The Boy Scouts' motto is "Be prepared," and this motto applies to any company or individual user that stores data in the cloud. For lawyers, being prepared is critical as lawyers deal with sensitive information on a daily basis. Confidential client data must be protected as ethics requirements specify.

Natural disasters can wreak havoc

As noted above, disaster can strike at any time. Natural disasters such as fire, flood, hurricane or tornadoes can wipe out an on-premise data storage solution. This in itself is enough of a reason to migrate to the cloud. Cloud servers are usually located in multiple locations so even if a natural disaster wipes out one server, the data is still safe in another. If you keep paper copies of all your important files in your office and a water or flood ruins them, it can be disastrous as the outcome of many cases depend on the information contained in these files. Other files, such as legal documents, contracts, billing records and client information will all have to be gathered and organized again. This can cost a law firm a large amount of time, and as we all know, time is money.

Disasters in the cloud

So now you moved all your data to the cloud and don't have to worry about fire or floods destroying your files. Great! But that's just the first step. Can disasters happen in the cloud? Yes, they can. But the good news is that you can be completely prepared to safeguard your data with virtually no chance of losing data, no matter what the disaster may be. But what are the disasters in the cloud?

Human error/accidental deletion: Human error is the number one leading cause of data loss in the cloud. Accidental deletion by users that have access to the account make up the main bulk of this loss. Other disasters can be attributed to accidental overwriting or misplacement.
Hacking/malicious deletion: Hacked accounts can result in deleted files. Often, hackers will look for information that they can use for their gain. If they are unable to find any information they can use, they may just delete files out of spite. Other times, they may delete all the data in order to cover their tracks.
Revenge deletion: Recently fired employees that haven't had their access to company accounts revoked yet may log in to the company account and delete files in revenge. If an employee has recently been disciplined, he may log in and delete data in revenge, but try to make it look like a hacking job from outside the company. Either way, the results are data loss.
Loss of account access: If you lose access to your company cloud account, this can cause major problems, especially if you need to be in court and cannot access the data in the account. Cloud providers have automated systems that sometimes wrongfully accuse users of violating the ToS. This can cause an account to be deleted and sometimes the data is unrecoverable. Even if it is recoverable, recovery can take weeks.

So what's the solution?

The solution is simple- a cloud backup service such as cloudHQ can solve every one of the problems listed above. No matter what kind of disaster may befall your company cloud account, cloudHQ will always maintain a secondary copy of your data in a completely separate cloud account. This cloud account should have no affiliation with the company whatsoever, and all authentication measures should be completely different from any authentication of all company accounts. So if a disaster strikes, you will be completely prepared. The disaster recovery process is simple and can be completed within minutes. This saves the law firm time and money that would otherwise be lost if there was no cloud backup plan in place.

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The Importance of Disaster Recovery Testing (cloudcomputing.sys-con.com)
Data Backup: Cloud Computing vs. On-Site Options (staples.com)
Does BYOD Create A More Productive Worker? (cloudhq.net)
eMazzanti Article Explains IT Disaster Solutions (prweb.com)

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