Data Protection: Best Practices for Database Backup Security

In today’s digital landscape, data plays a critical role in ensuring the growth and continuity of organizations. With the constant generation, processing, and storage of large volumes of data, safeguarding it becomes paramount to mitigate the devastating repercussions of data loss in the event of a disaster. Without reliable database backups, recovering infrastructure and ensuring stability can be challenging, leading to application failures, downtime, and further data losses.

Unfortunately, many organizations often overlook the importance of database backups. IT specialists, prioritizing production tasks, may postpone the implementation of backup workflows. However, as organizations expand their operations and infrastructure, developing a comprehensive backup plan and establishing efficient backup security measures become increasingly crucial.

Both small organizations and enterprises can benefit from a centralized solution, such as the Entrust, NordLayer, BigMIND Backup solution, to protect their database backups and environments. This ensures swift recovery whenever required. To increase your database backup security, it is essential to follow these best practices:

Cloud-Based Storage:
Leveraging cloud-based storage for your data backups offers reliability and efficiency. With a cloud backup storage platform, you can access and manage your backups from anywhere with an internet connection. Additionally, cloud storage providers prioritize the security of their services, offering an extra layer of protection. By combining the security capabilities of a modern backup solution with those of a cloud storage service, you can enhance backup protection and overall system reliability.

Implement Backup Encryption:
While encrypting production data is a common practice to prevent unauthorized access, backup data encryption is often overlooked. Hackers can target backup transfer workflows or storage repositories to steal data. Encrypting your backup data with robust encryption algorithms adds an additional layer of protection, making it challenging for hackers to crack the code. Look for a comprehensive backup solution that supports encryption features, including both in-flight (during transfer) and at-rest (storage period) encryption. Advanced Encryption Standard (AES 256) is a recommended encryption standard that ensures up-to-date backup protection against unauthorized access.

Restrict Access Rights:
Carefully managing access rights to data backups is crucial in reducing the chances of data loss or corruption resulting from human error or insider attacks. Modern data protection solutions offer features such as two-factor authentication (2FA) and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to enhance access security. By implementing these features, you can add an extra layer of protection during the login process and configure backup access rights for different employee groups, simplifying management workflows. Applying the principle of least privilege ensures efficient database backup security.

Maintain Backup Logs:
Keeping track of your data backup logs is essential. Regularly update and monitor your existing database backups, noting their creation dates, and regularly test their recoverability. Discovering that a backup is unrecoverable after losing the original data can be disastrous. Thoroughly tracking backups allows you to maintain control over the security of your data and facilitates faster recovery in emergency situations, minimizing downtime.

Utilize Multiple Storage Types:
While cloud storage services are gaining popularity, physical storage remains advantageous for database backup security. Physical storage provides an offline backup solution, ensuring data recovery even in the absence of internet access. It also offers faster recovery times compared to cloud-based services when copying data from directly attached physical disks. Additionally, physical disks can be easily transformed into air-gapped backup storage, providing high security for long-term data archiving purposes. Adhering to the reliable 3-2-1 backup rule is crucial, ensuring at least three copies of data on two different storage media, with one backup copy stored offsite or in the cloud. This strategy guarantees a functioning backup copy on site, maintaining control over critical data in case of a primary backup failure, such as after a ransomware attack.

Summary
Implementing regular database backup workflows is essential to secure your data and support production continuity. However, simply creating backups is not enough. To ensure comprehensive database backup security, you must carefully consider your backup storage and security approach. Cloud storage provides convenience and security, while backup encryption and access restriction prevent unauthorized access and minimize data loss. Tracking backups ensures data integrity and recoverability, while utilizing multiple storage types adheres to the 3-2-1 backup rule, ensuring reliable backup copies. By following these best practices, you can safeguard your data effectively.