Data is one of the most vital and valuable assets your business holds. Personal information, business strategy, and financial information are just a small amount of data stored on your servers.

Identify your threat space

Several companies jump into taking protective measures without any understanding, and this can often lead to poor investments. This is money wasted that could have been used to improve your business.

There are three types of attacks your servers could come under:

• Determined attacks
• Crimes of opportunity
• Crimes of convenience

While crimes of opportunity are things like your common theft, they can also include attacks like spear-phishing & ransomware. A lot of people think this kind of stuff is digital security only, but it’s not. One of the typical ways that people are bypassing all the digital security measures that we take, from a cyber security perspective, is interacting with the physical space.

Keep a physical presence around your data center 24/7

Inside the data center grounds, address crimes of opportunity with tall fencing, human existence, and various keyed entry points. Have an employee on the ground looking for things that are not normal, investigating potential issues, keeping areas clean, and doing checks and sweeps.

Simple signage and visible deterrents

This is the most effective way to prevent crimes of opportunity: video surveillance and signs that state you have a camera presence. Most people are honest, but if an opportunity exists, some people will take advantage. By placing cameras and signaling that cameras are there, you help reduce what they perceive as opportunities.

Physical additions to the storage unit

Placing physical barriers on the point of access to your servers can go a long way for your security. These include automatic re-closers on the door, bio-metric two-point authentication, and enclosed racks. Enclosed racks help keep your servers protected and organized. Security has been addressed as well, with locking front and back doors and locking side panels. If needed, you can upgrade latches for even more protection.

Maintain an air gap between primary and backup data

This ensures the servers are physically not accessible on the same network. Your principal and backup data cannot be on the same site, and the cloud is not always the solution. When considering the impact of downtime or data loss on your business, the cloud brings challenges and retrieves your data from it. Not to mention, it can also cost a lot of money to do this. Consider how fast you can be back online, and if you need to recover immediately or a longer period.