Natural Disasters. Hackers. Malfunctions. Disgruntled Employees.

These are just a few of the things that could lead to a data disaster and put your agency at risk of being unable to recover sensitive and necessary information.

Our data can feel safe, locked away and backed up on a server. But there are still plenty of risks that can be avoided by moving data to the Cloud. That’s because with the Cloud, there is no one single place the data is stored, making it less vulnerable to the following risks.

Risk Factors to Data

Natural Disasters

In the event of a natural disaster, any data stored on a stand-alone computer or server is vulnerable to loss. Even if your server is located offsite, and your data isn’t backed up correctly, you could potentially lose it all.

Security and Hacking

A stand-alone computer would need to be properly secured in order to guarantee the data is not compromised. A simple employee error, like saving a file to the desktop instead of a secure drive, or forgetting to download an update, could lead to a security breach. Not only would your data be vulnerable to hacking, but if wiped clean, could be irrecoverable. In addition, cloud-based storage is less likely to be hacked because it is guarded by a much larger industry partner with significantly enhanced security measures to protect your data.

Employee Issues

Even in the event that your agency’s employees are well versed when it comes to backing up their data and storing it correctly, there’s always a potential for data to be wiped out by a dissatisfied employee. Say, for example, an employee is fired but they wipe their hard drive of critical data and documents before they leave. With the Cloud, data is backed up in secure locations inaccessible to employees.

Malfunctions

In the event of a computer crash, information on that computer may be a total loss. But, if you use a cloud-based storage solution, the information resides on the Cloud, not the computer, so the likelihood of data loss is greatly reduced.

While no system is flawless, opting to secure your data on the Cloud versus onsite can dramatically reduce your vulnerabilities to data loss in the event of natural disasters, security breaches, employee issues, or computer malfunctions. Because so many agencies are budget-strapped when it comes to IT, using a cloud-based storage solution gives agencies the ability to have big-dollar security on a small budget.