The ever-increasing data has been a concern for businesses over the years. Organizations dealing with data processing, storage and data transfer need to take adequate measures in order to prevent data leakage during a disaster. It is crucial to formulate a disaster recovery plan addressing data disposal practices too in order to mitigate risks of data breach and maintain business continuity. This blog discusses in detail the importance of data erasure in a disaster recovery plan.
A disaster recovery plan is a set of written guidelines that help businesses to respond quickly and effectively when a disaster strikes to reduce damage and quickly resume operations. Such a plan includes the emergency response team, critical IT assets with maximum allowed downtime and the tools as well as resources necessary to restore functionality in minimal time. By planning in advance and aligning the right approach to overcome IT disruptions to networks, servers, computers, laptops, and mobile devices, organizations can withstand their worst nightmare.
Possibility of unauthorized access to company data is higher when a disaster hits the organization. While the organization is preoccupied with getting the business up and running and setting up the IT infrastructure, they shouldn’t forget to look into wiping data on devices that got destructed or damaged during the disaster. This prevents any undue exposure of data from falling into wrong hands. Organizations must integrate data erasure in their disaster recovery plan (DRP) for preventing any data getting compromised, ultimately leading to data breach.
To ensure data security, disaster recovery planning must address data protection throughout the data lifecycle by devising best practices of data destruction through a well-defined policy. We enlist below some of the key considerations for organizations while including data erasure strategy in their DRP plan.
Disaster stricken organization generally prefer to opt for physical destruction methods such as shredding of their damaged devices. The technique is effective but has many grim consequences as it may leave chances of forensic data recovery from an inadequately shredded media, like a chunk of the hard drive platter. On the contrary, if the company choses to destruct data from affected devices using logical technique of overwriting (through a data wiping software), then it helps them comply with EPA regulations by rendering the device reusable and reducing e-waste.
Stay a step ahead and plan well for disasters through a well laid Disaster Recovery Plan that defines the data erasure protocols and procedures to safeguard the organization from potential risks of data leakage. Mitigating Risks of data leakage and data theft during disaster is important for the organization as it may otherwise lead to millions of dollars penalty due to non-compliance with the laws of land. Media sanitization by the right professional tools ensures that no data is left behind on either old devices or in-use devices. Consider permanent data erasure crucial for disaster recovery planning and minimize the impact of unplanned business downtime that may happen if the company data is exposed to cyber intruders or dumpster divers.