Top Five Tech Tools You're Probably Using - but could use BETTER: part four

Data Storage

I remember in 1994, I was working as a systems administrator for a Wall Street firm when the first 1 gigabyte Seagate hard drive arrived. All the sys admins dropped what we were doing and rushed to the lab, to gaze in awe at this miraculous device. "Can you believe it?" someone remarked, "they've managed to fit an entire gigabyte on a single hard drive!"

I imagine this anecdote is amusing even to the non-geeks out there. My iPhone has 16 GB of storage, and that's not even the top of the line. Terabyte hard drives - a thousand gigabytes - are now available for $100 or less -- considerably less than the 1 gig drive we ogled like a fan perched at the velvet rope for a glimpse of his favorite superstar actress. Large format hard drives are marvelous; we can store digital pictures, movies, MP3s of our favorite songs with ease, and room to spare.

Of course, the more we store on a single device, the more we stand to lose if (and when) that device fails. Although modern computers are infinitely more stable and dependable than the clunky boxes we were using in the '90s, hard drives are the parts most likely to fail simply because they have the most moving parts, and those parts are moving all the time. How do we protect ourselves against data loss, when we're storing hundreds - or thousands - of gigabytes??

 Back in the 1990s, we backed up data on 8 millimeter tape. This was fine when 10 or 20 gigabytes was a large backup set, but simply won't do for a Small Business backing up ten times that -- or a hundred times as much! The simplest method we recommend is to use an external hard drive unit - attachable via USB connection - as the target of your computer's built-in backup utility. While this is the typical method most Small Businesses use, when they DO backup their critical data, we suggest a twist - backup your data about once a week, and detach the external hard drive between backups, storing it in a safe location away from the computer you're backing up.

Top Five Tech Tools You're Probably Using - but could use BETTER: part three

PC Security

If you're like most people, keeping your computer secure is a task similar to dieting - it's something you've heard a lot about, everyone you know has an opinion, yet no matter where you are with it, you suspect that you're still not doing the best you can.

We can lock our computers down so tight that nothing gets done without a half dozen pop-up windows asking "Are you sure?" after every mouse click. Or, we throw caution to the window and shut all that "annoying" security stuff off, which makes it much easier to get work done -- until the next virus or trojan hijacks our machine, and we're offline for days (or weeks) trying to clean up the mess and make up for the lost time.

Real-world PC security falls somewhere comfortably between "front door wide open" and "Def-con 1". The problem is, most articles on computer security discuss theory, not fact. Rotating "strong" passwords sounds good on paper, but in the real world it means you'll create a password so complex you'll have to write it down to remember it (which is like putting the front door key under the doormat), only to have to change it several times a year.

What you actually need to do is assess the level of security required for the asset being secured. You need a stronger password for your GMail or Yahoo! Mail account than your personal workstation, because your web-based email account is exposed to the world, while your personal computer is only vulnerable to those who have physical access to it. Until you connect to the Internet, or install software from an untrustworthy source.

Which brings us to the "real world PC security short list". Three things you must do, or be prepared to do, to have reasonable security as you surf the web and expose your computer to the risks - and benefits - of the global Internet:

1. Use hard-to-guess passwords for all important assets
2. Use a software firewall at all times
3. Use ONE anti-virus program, and update it regularly

Passwords

The best way to protect your computer, email accounts, online banking and such is to make a "hard-to-guess" password. Given enough time, opportunity & resources, *all* passwords are crackable, so don't go crazy trying to create a password that would require a supercomputer to defeat -- you're not securing the president's nuclear launch codes. You just need to keep the script kiddies and automated password cracking programs out.

A simple method of creating passwords both hard to guess and easy (for you) to remember without writing them down is to combine two words & use a substitution method. For example: start with "crack" and "this". Join them with an asterisk, so you now gave "crack*this". Next, swap an "@" for the "a", "#" for the "h" and an exclamation mark for the "i".

Your password is now "cr@ck*t#!s". No brute force dictionary hack is going to crack this: it would literally take going through every combination of ten character combinations until the one you created was randomly stumbled upon. Yet, you should be able to remember it (relatively) easily, since you know what you started with, & what you combined & substituted to get the end results.

Software firewall/Anti-virus program

I'm going to save time (and column space) here, and just make a recommendation: download and install Microsoft Security Essentials. It's good, it's free, and since this post is about PC security, it secures every version of Windows from XP to Windows 7 (if you're using anything earlier than XP -- c'mon now... really?)

Microsoft Security Essentials (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Now the readers of this blog, and this series, may be surprised that I don't provide a short list of options here. There are other free anti-virus and firewall programs that are about as good as MSE, and you may be using them. If so, please continue. But the focus of this post is security as a business process, not as a technical consideration.

For those of you who aren't using anything, and thus are unfamiliar with activating and configuring a software firewall, MSE's advantage is that it provides a best-of-breed antivirus program AND automatically activates and configures the built-in Windows firewall, saving you the headache of closing the firewall too tight, and helps you avoid the risk of finally shutting it off because the frustration of calibrating it becomes too great a disruption of your workflow.

When all else fails

Even when you do all of the above, your computer may still become infected. PC security is an arms race, and a constant compromise between locking your computer down until it becomes unusable, and leaving that one thing open that lets the badguys in.

Before that happens, do yourself two favors. First, download and install Malwarebytes Anti-malware. Install it and upgrade its definitions. Make a habit of upgrading the definitions every other week, just as a force of habit. Why? Because if your computer ever does become infected, this most likely may be  the only program that will clean up the infection -- but the security definitions MUST BE UPDATED to deal with the newest infections, which pop up faster than bad pop songs on iTunes.

The second favor is to bookmark these free, online anti-virus scanners in your browser of choice:

• http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
• http://www.pandasecurity.com/homeusers/solutions/activescan/
• http://www.bitdefender.com/scanner/online/free.html
• http://www.eset.com/us/online-scanner
• http://www.f-secure.com/en_EMEA-Labs/security-threats/tools/online-scanner

If you are running MSE (or another anti-virus/firewall combination) and your computer becomes infected anyway, it will most likely be a trojan - software that masquerades as something harmless and buries itself into the operating system itself. Definite signs of a trojan infection are that your antivirus program stops working, and your browser is blocked from connecting to the Internet. That's why you need Malwarebytes already installed and updated - you'll need to run it to kill the trojan, and restore funtionality.

After an actual infection, I like to be double, triple sure that all traces of scum-ware have been removed. That's where the above websites come into play: they are the best online antivirus scanners available. They're all free, and are online services offered by the best anti-virus companies in the business. I recommend that you run more than one of them to ensure a clean machine - the truly paranoid among you can run them all.

In closing, remember that security is a process, not a program. It's how you do what you do that keeps you secure. For further details on this subject, check out my FREE eBook, "4 Things You MUST Know About Computer Security", available to read online or download to your hard drive.

And don't forget to scan it after you download it -- trust noone.

---

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Your data IS Your Business: Dynamic data

In my previous post on data protection, we discussed the three types of Small Business data:

• Dynamic data
• Active data
• Archive data

There are different methods required to best protect the different types of data your Small Business depends on. Note that I said "protect", and not "backup" you data. Backing up your data is the most important part of protecting it. But steps must be taken before and after backup to make sure the process actually provides protection, and not just repeated activity.

Before backing up your data, you must determine two things: 1) which data will you backup? and 2) how frequently will you backup that data? The answers vary depending on which of type of data we're considering.

After backup, the most important questions are: 1) how long will you keep that backup? and 2) how many different versions of this backup do you want, and why? These questions, no doubt, are answered differently, based upon the type of data being considered.

Dynamic data, being the most important, comes first - it's what your Small Business is working on right now. Today's email correspondence, the document that will become an email attachment as soon as it's completed. Even your web browser bookmarks have a greater business impact than you might realize. It's "Dynamic", after all: you must have the current version of whatever document, diagram, link or bookmark you depend upon for your Small Business to compete and function effectively.

The fact that is often overlooked by Small Businesses is that dynamic data not only has to be backed up, but backed up dynamically. Last night's version of a file you've been working on for hours is no help if your computer's disk dies, or you corrupt or overwrite the file. Scheduled nightly backups are fine for protecting active data, but to protect your dynamic data, you need more frequent backups.

The problem with this suggestion is that you are simply not going to perform  six, eight, ten or more backups a day... you're too busy running your business, and the backup process is too complex and involved to justify the distraction and disruption. Fortunately, this issue has been confronted by the huge mega-corporations' IT departments, given a name - Continuous Data Protection - and more importantly, they've given us a solution.

What you need is a program that will backup your dynamic data either at regularly scheduled intervals throughout the day, or as the data actually changes. Or one that does both, like IBM Tivoli CDP for files. Now, while I do prefer to recommend Open Source software when it provides the best solutions for your Small Buiness, sometimes, the best solution is a commercial product.

With IBM Tivoli CDP for files, you can:

• back up all your dynamic data, both on a schedule and whenever it changes. 
• backup to as many as three different locations, for extra protection. 
• start protecting your data instead of spending hours learning how to setup the program.

It has a simple, web-based interface, making it easy to add files and folders to its intelligent set of defaults, identify which data is being backed up, how much space is available in your backup locations and, most importantly, to retrieve the proper version of any backed up file when you need it most -- usually, in the middle of a tense situation, when you don't have the time to struggle with a complicated retrieval process.

Most importantly, it's affordable - only $44 per machine. Set up properly, you can save all of your important data to a folder shared between several PCs, then protect that one folder with IBM Tivoli CDP. And then just work,  knowing that your most important data has the best protection you can provide.

Next post, I'll cover the four "before and after questions" raised at the beginning of this post, and show you how a product like Tivoli CDP can be used to answer them. Until then, be well.

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Your Data IS Your Business

Even if your firm or organization doesn't "do computers" by trade, computers are probably more important than you realize to your Small Business.

A lot of key information that was once kept in metal filing cabinets and on cardboard Rolodex cards is now more easily and accurately stored on computers.  Large amounts of information - data, in geek-speak - are stored primarily - if not exclusively - on your Small Business computers. E-mails. Electronic documents of all kinds: contracts, proposals, invoices, resumes, receipts. Contact information for clients, vendors, and other business associates.

To avoid finding yourself and/or your Small Business exposed to the sudden loss of critical, irreplaceable data, you've got to determine what is important data, and make certain you protect it. A blog can't identify all of your critical data for you, but it can help you discover what the three main categories of business data are, and get an idea of the best methods for protecting each.

• Dynamic data
• Active data
• Archive data

In short, there's the information you're working on right now (Dynamic data), the information you consume and create in the course of working (Active data), and finally the information your store for reference and compliance purposes (Archive data).

Dynamic data is stuff like: your email Inbox; the draft of a proposal to a potential client; digital photographs newly transferred from your camera or cell phone for business purposes. This data may be so new, it isn't in it's finished state. Should you lose it, you'll most likely be unable to reproduce or precisely recreate it.

Active data is more stable, but no less important. It's information like your central contact list - with all the important names, addresses, emails and phone numbers (you do have one, yes?); templates for the often used documents that are particular to your Small Business or tradecraft; your QuickBooks company file(s), financial spreadsheets, bank account information; access information for the essential online accounts - URLs, login IDs and passwords. Digital scans of physical items and documents.

Archive data is the information you may no longer actively use or consult, but still need to have readily available. Tax and other financial information. Old emails, completed To-do list and calendar information. Old contract agreements. Former employee data.

None of this information (except the QuickBooks files, of course) are specific to any program. Or any particular computer platform - Windows, Mac or Linux - for that matter. ALL of this and more make up the vital, mission-critical data most Small Business don't even realize they depend upon. Until it's damaged, or it disappears.

In the next post, we'll discuss how to protect your Small Business from exposure to such risks by learning how to identify the data in each category, and adopt simple methods to protect against loss or damage.

See you soon.

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What is a Backup?

I have several Small Business clients who "back up" their data by attaching large USB hard drives to their computers, and copying key files and folders to them. While this is an excellent way to archive or synchronize data, they are surprised when I tell them this is not really a data backup. Of course, they then ask me to explain the difference?

• Archiving - is when you make a complete copy of a folder and all its contents, usually to a tape, CD or DVD, and then store it for reference or future retrieval.
• Synchronizing - is when you have two folders, usually on different machines, and you take steps to ensure that every file and subfolder which is on one machine is exactly duplicated on the other.
• Backup - is when you store files and folders for protection against accidental deletion or alteration. In backups, you usually save multiple versions of the same files and or folders, allowing you to "roll back" to the way the files or folders were at a particular date or time.

Archiving and synchronizing save copies of files and folders.

• Archiving saves many copies of the same files and folders 
• Synchronizing saves only the most recent copy of every file and folder.

Backups save versions of files and folders. Think of backups as the perfect combination of archiving and synchronizing.

• Like synchronizing, you always have the latest version of the files and folders you backup. 
• Like archiving, you have every version of every changed file and folder in your backup list.

• Unlike synchronizing, you have every version of each file and folder, not just the most recent. 
• Unlike archiving, you have only the versions of files that have changed since your last backup, not multiple copies of identical files.

In the "copy to large external drive" scenario above, archiving takes up too much space, since full copies of the entire target folder is required. Synchronizing lacks the ability to access previous versions of the target files -- if a file is infected with a virus, then synchronized, you now have two versions of a bad file, and no good file to recover with.
A backup would allow you to select an uninfected version and copy it over the infected file. This is why we consider proper backups to be a key part of data protection, along with a good antivirus and firewall  program .

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Back that @$# up!

It's the single biggest technology mistake Small Businesses make.

They use email. They surf the web. Computers are cheaper than ever, so everyone in the office has a pretty decent one. And more (though still not *most*) Small Business computers have an anti-virus program running, and some sort of firewall, on the computer itself, or at the Internet connection guarding the entire office.

So while a greater number of machines are protected against intrusion or infection, few are protected against failure. Hard drive crash. Power surge. Even accidental deletion of irreplaceable data.

Image via Wikipedia
Given the past few years, it's easy to get caught up in, well... fear - especially when credit card companies and government agencies are routinely compromised.

But let's be practical: your Small Business is in much greater danger of a critical computer dying because of mechanical failure or human error, than it is of being damaged irreparably by a malicious program.

Your data IS your business: it's the reason your Small Business even has any computers, unless you make them or repair them. Creating, storing, sharing, and manipulating information - "data", in geekspeak - is what computers do for all businesses, regardless of their size or trade.

We're all doing a better job protecting our data *from* - identity thieves, viruses and worms, prying eyes. But how well are we simply protecting our data?

Anybody out there that has ever had the hard drive of an essential computer die understands completely the importance of data protection. And even those of us who haven't actually experienced this can easily imagine the disaster this could be. Yet, time and again, the important information upon which Small Businesses depend is left to chance, luck and the hope that nothing goes wrong.

It's a shame, but the number one way I meet new Small Business clients is potential data loss situations. The smaller the business, the more likely they have no backup at all.

Fortunately, most of these cases have been "near misses", but I dread the scenario when I have to tell a Small Business owner there is nothing I can do, because the disk is dead beyond restoring, and they have NO BACKUP to retrieve data from.

So what's the problem. More usefully, what's the *solution*? In my experience, the problem is two-fold: understanding what to backup, and finding a way to backup data that isn't so complicated that you eventually stop doing it.

These factors aren't that tough to resolve, given the proper experience and insight. Both of which I will share with you in the next few posts which, when finished, should help you actually back your stuff up.

And avoid that fatal, OM%G disaster...

peace

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