The popularity of the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) model has raised a lot of questions about security and the cloud, and firms embracing the trend also have to worry about what might happen to important data if a laptop, tablet, or smartphone gets stolen, lost, or broken while an employee is away from work.
It doesn’t matter how careful people are, accidents, thefts, or unfortunate momentary lapses will always occur. NASA famously lost a laptop containing sensitive information earlier in the year, and an Indian nuclear scientist had his laptop, reportedly filled with critical data, stolen from the train he was on. Even the security services have been known to lose laptops from time to time. A report by the Digital Forensics Association, called The Leaking Vault 2011, studied 3,765 publicly disclosed data breach incidents over a six year period (from 2005-2010), and found that 33 percent of stolen laptops were taken from the office and 28 percent from vehicles, compared to just 11 percent taken from home.
Naturally, in the case of BYOD hardware, the loss of data is usually far more worrying that the loss or destruction of the device itself.
Making sure employees always back up important content when in the office is a no brainer, but it’s also a risky strategy -- you can pretty much guarantee devices will go missing or malfunction just before that long-overdue backup occurs (in fact, it’s probably a clause in Murphy’s Law). The trick, then, is to be able to ensure all of the important documents, emails and records on every device get backed up regularly, and from wherever they happen to be located.
Carbonite Business is an affordable solution that automatically backs up an unlimited number of computers, external hard drives and NAS devices in real-time, and in the background whenever an employee goes online, and will of course allow them easy access to the files from anywhere too. There are free apps for iOS, Android and BlackBerry.
Prices start from a flat $229 per year (just over $4 a week), which includes 250GB of storage that can be used by all computers, external hard drives and NAS devices. The administrative dashboard makes it easy to keep track of data usage, so you can check that all of the employees’ devices are fully backed up and there’s enough free space.
If 250GB isn’t enough, you can purchase additional storage in 50GB chunks (up to 12TB). Each additional 50GB costs $46 per year, or $89 per 100GB, per year. There are savings to be made by choosing to pay for two or three years upfront, rather than just the one. Larger firms can opt for Carbonite Business Premier which will enable them to back up an unlimited number of computers and Windows servers and comes with 500GB for $599 a year.
There’s no risk involved with Carbonite Business either, as you can sign up for a free 30-day trial without needing to enter any credit card details (meaning you won’t be stung if you decide it’s not for you but forget to cancel in time).
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