What are the Causes of Data loss and their Prevention Strategies?

Indeed, databases are very crucial for every business, and loss of it can result in financial loss as well as reduced productivity. Eventually, data recovery centers witness a lot of cases every day where companies or professionals struggle to retrieve information lost due to their negligence. This article will discuss various reasons for the loss of data along with strategies to prevent it. Let’s take a look at them.

What are the Causes of Data Loss?

No doubt, every industry hires the best professionals and takes necessary measures to keep their data safe from external as well as internal threats. But, there are many loopholes that people overlook or are not aware of, know them all below:

Error from humans

Humans are not perfect and sometimes make blunders that cost them substantially.

These mistakes are deleting the files of data or some text files. Moreover, the employees without realizing it overwrite the critical files or even delete the set of data that is crucial for the company. Unknowingly, people bring destruction to files on a large scale such as damaging the hard drives, spilling the liquid on gadgets, and formatting the drives.

However, these errors occur only when the staff is in a rush of working or lacks basic knowledge. They accidentally click on some options or respond to pop-ups without knowing the consequences.

Damage to the hard drive

Another major reason for the loss of data is the damaged hard drives due to malfunctions. The hard drives are the most delicate and vital part of the system. The hard drives that crash every week are estimated to be 140 thousand out of which 60% are because of mechanical issues and the rest 40% are due to human mishandling. The drives get damaged when the computer system or laptop is dropped down or pushed forcibly. Additionally, using the computer system for continuous long hours gets overheated and results in damaged hard drives.

There are some indications from which one can detect if the hard drive is failing:

• Repeated crashing
• The computer is always hot
• Slow processing speed
• Instant freezes

Therefore, if one encounters the above-mentioned issues continuously, there is a risk of hard drive failure. 

Theft of the devices

Well, due to the busy schedules people prefer working while they are commuting as well. They use laptops and tablets as it is convenient to carry and work on. As per a study, 25% of the theft of laptops takes place in public vehicles or cars. 

The laptops and other devices that have saved credentials for accessing any portal or set of databases serve an opportunity for hackers to steal easily. 

Hacking 

Hacking is a serious issue and even responsible majorly for breaches of data. The hackers enter your network and steal important data or corrupt it due to poor cyber security measures. There are a few loopholes due to which these cybercriminals get access to your system such as:

• Server with poor security 
• No firewalls
• Easy to guess passwords

Above all, there are sometimes employees from within the company who attempt to steal the data or damage the system. The owners need to set up a different level of access permission for the staff. 

Power cuts

However, the system shuts down instantly when there is a power outage. As a result, it gives no time to save the work and poses a risk to already present files of getting corrupted due to improper shutdown. 

Continuous power outages and instant shutdowns can have a bad impact on hard drives. Most importantly, if the system shuts down all of a sudden when it is writing to the hard drive, it may never start again.

Corrupted software

Moving next, a simple issue of a power outage can corrupt the software immensely. It not only results in loss of work but a sudden shutdown without warning can damage the data. Moreover, it becomes impossible to retrieve the data that is lost due to corrupt software that many never run again.

What are the Strategies to Prevent the Loss of Data?

There are many ways that professionals can adopt to keep their data secure. When there is a loss of data, companies usually search for tape data recovery services that help retrieve the information. They can bring back the files which are lost due to physical damage, overwritten, or failure due to no backup available. Check the below-mentioned strategies to prevent the data loss:

Creating an alternate backup option

Well, it is very important to store data in different storage locations. One should utilize different mediums to store data separately such as cloud, external drives, or offshore servers.

Install firewalls and the latest antivirus versions

Positively, installing firewalls and antivirus in the computer system can keep your network secure from malicious activities. Moreover, not just having software but keeping them updated is equally important. It is advisable to own antivirus and firewall that fits best as per the security requirement and level of the organization.

Own a UPS 

This is the most important key point in avoiding the loss of data. The UPS is a saviour for every professional or business. There are power outages many times that lead to the sudden shut down of the system. It causes damage to the hard drive as well as to the software.

Create and assign different levels of access

Well, to prevent the data and the network from internal threats is to design a low to the high level of access permission. Unfortunately, there are sometimes the employees or an inside person responsible for stealing and corrupting the data. So, the staff member can be assigned permission to access the data as per their responsibility and work.

Conclusion

Lastly, the loss of data is an ongoing process in companies. There are many reasons that contribute to corrupting the files or deleting important information which affects the business greatly. Most importantly, it just does not impact the operations of your firm but ruins the reputation as there can be a risk to data related to the client’s personal details. Many use data recovery software to deal with these issues if it happens on a daily basis. 

Hopefully, the article is helpful in identifying the threats to the data and taking necessary measures to prevent them.