Businesses are at risk of falling foul of new data protection laws because they fail to securely back up their data, according to a new study.
Beaming, which published the study, found that just under a million UK businesses do not back up their company data, while a further 2.8 million risk losing sensitive information by storing electronic copies in the same location as the original data.
Failing to protect data is just as harmful as misusing it. Under the new data protection laws which came into effect on 25 May, known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), companies are required to take steps to ensure customer data is held securely.
A potential cyber breach could cost a company hundreds of thousands of pounds in fines if it could be proven that the business acted carelessly.
Despite this, the report shows that around two in five SMEs store back-up information in the same location as it is generated.
Businesses have been advised to use cloud software to store data independently, which is much less likely to be breached.
Sonia Blizzard, managing director of Beaming, said: “The introduction of GDPR has highlighted the need for secure and resilient data storage in order to mitigate the risk of significant data loss.
“We’d encourage businesses to think seriously about private cloud or co-location services when it comes to storing highly sensitive data or mission critical applications. These should only be accessed through the most secure forms of connectivity.”