Tag Archives: HIPAA

Seven Things to Consider When Choosing a Cloud Backup Service Provider

June 22, 2016 Rob Mackle

The best approach to fully protect your data (and restoring it after a big disaster) is by simply replicating all data to a secured data centre to an off-site location.

Cloud backup is done automatically with the help of the Internet. As a matter of fact, it is very important for every company to protect their personal or official data by using a good cloud backup service by choosing an appropriate service provider.

Seven Important Features in a good cloud backup service

With thousands of cloud backup companies offering what seems to be the same services, companies looking for these services become overwhelmed and don’t know where to start. From a glance, they all all look the same. But, the fact is, they are all different. Clients need to have a service that is more efficient, reliable and cost effective. They also prefer to choose the backup service provider having efficient mechanism for the data protection and recovery from the main data centre. Clients also do not want to pay exuberant amount of money; they want a fair price.

Never choose the cloud backup service provider if he doesn’t meet the given requirements:

Data Seeding Options:Data seeding reduces initial backup time and enables the user to transfer data easily. If you have a large amount of data to backup, start the backup by sending the data in an encrypted external media.

Overnight Data Shuttle:You should ask if the company will be able to provide you with overnight shipment of critical data in case of network outage. This service is preferred by big organisations.

Security for Storage and Transfer: You need to ensure that your data is safe with the service provider. After all, it is your data. Don’t choose a company if it is unable to offer security.

There are several government agencies dictating how data storage companies handle, protect and transfer data. Is the company HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, Gram-Leach-Bliley and etc. compliant? Compliance to these regulations confirms the standing of the cloud backup company you are considering.
Ensure that all types of data transfers are fully encrypted with SSL protocols. This helps to minimise the chances of data hacking.
Check where the service provider stores the data. Ask what kind of procedure is in place to access the data centre. Does it have some kind of ID systems and video surveillance facilities?

Geographically Dispersed Data Centres: Allows redundant copies of your data in more than one location in case of a natural disaster or a terrorist attack. Ensure that the data centres are at least 3,000 Km away from each other.

Data Recovery with Different Devices:The service needs to be device agnostic. Today, everyone has laptops and other gadgets such as tablets. It is necessary to choose a backup service that allows recovering the data from different devices other than the one used to backup the data.

Technical Assistance:A backup service provider must offer technical support in order to solve any issues. You should demand this feature in order to get the support you need to protect your data and perform recovery when needed.Daily Reports: This is for the information and record purposes. It is necessary to see the activities related to your data. You can easily see when and where data was transferred.

File-Sharing Services & Strategies of Enterprises to Avoid Security Lapse

January 4, 2016 Stewart Parkin

File-sharing services may give some benefits to organisations, but security breaches could end up costing the company thousands of dollars. Due to carelessness of employees, sensitive information of clients could get leaked and companies have to pay charges for violation of HIPAA regulations. As a result, file-sharing services are believed to be major threats to secured data. Though most of the companies might take security measures, they cannot share the files effectively to end users. One of the reasons is that companies lack visibility into how employees use the services.

Why File-Sharing Services are Used?
Companies find file-sharing services useful when they are required to transfer documents to clients on regular basis. Though there are limitations applied to email services, content managers find it to be a reliable solution for communicating with developers, freelance writers, vendors and designers. The platform is not only inexpensive, but also gives facility to communicate and share information irrespective of time. Many services offer a basic starter package for free and allow you to buy additional storage at affordable rates.

Drawbacks
Enterprises require many security features which are missing from file-sharing services. For instance, some file-sharing solutions lack encryption and as file-sharing is mostly of a public nature, confidential files could end up at the wrong hands. The convenience of file-sharing services is provided at the cost of consistency. Moreover, anywhere and anytime feature of file-sharing often leads to compliance issues.
The disconcerting drawback is loss of trust that is developed by end users on the services of the companies. Perhaps, the problem is created due to carelessness of newly appointed employee, who is not an expert; and they might delete some of the important files or heap of folders by mistake. Improper management of data is the most serious threat that makes way for malware or hackers’ attack.

Ways to Tackle File-sharing Issues
File-sharing has so many disadvantages, so enterprises are applying strict approaches to handle file-sharing services. It is the reason why many companies do not allow their employees to check mainstream file-sharing platforms. When companies pay penalties against compliance and security breaches just because of employees’ slip up, it becomes reasonable to apply an extreme approach to avoid such issues.

There are three basic methods to cope with issues concerning file-sharing services in the enterprise:

Careful Selection
Is it necessary for organisations to embrace latest file-sharing services? Cloud services are not accepted by all organisations. A small number of enterprises are getting the benefit from these services. Careful selection of cloud services is mandatory when organisations need custom fit solutions to fulfil their business and compliance requirements. Security features, cost, privacy settings, storage space, and maximum size of uploaded file are some of the factors that are considered before choosing a cloud service.

Customise Business Solutions
Do you need a service like Google Drive or Dropbox that is more secure and reliable? It is possible to have such type of platform by building a customised solutions. Tailored business solutions allow file-sharing as well as team work along with security of mission critical data within the enterprise. All organisations do not have resources to build customised solutions. They have an opportunity to hire services to get on-demand solutions.

Block File Storage Platforms
In order to avoid security breaches, IT managers should block unauthorised file-sharing platforms. Administrators have to configure hardware and firewalls to block particular IP addresses.

Why is Asigra the Most Reliable Cloud Backup Software Solution?

December 10, 2015 Callum Huddlestone

The significance of a technology is evaluated through its capability to accomplish various business targets. One such technology we want to discuss today is a cloud backup and data storage software.

Asigra, founded in 1986, is considered the most reliable cloud backup and recovery software. Asigra offers security, affordability, reliability and manageability. It is one of the leading software providers for cloud backup and data recovery. Asigra has made managed business backup system very simple.

Managed backup service providers are attracted to using the Asigra solution for the profit margins, recurring revenue, marketing support, client retention model, FIPS certification, and the company ethics. In addition, Asigra allows its partners to go to market fast, in unprecedented ways. Partners are able to enjoy the various support services that are developed by Asigra.

By developing customer base and increasing margins, Asigra partners get the possibility to make a lot of money. By giving high tech value added services, Asigra’s partners can avoid channel conflict, triumph over technology restraints, improve customer satisfaction, receive ecosystem support, and access marketing and sales support to flourish their business.

Asigra reduces ownership risk by minimizing the operational threats. Asigra’s Hybrid Partner Program gives access to resources like programs for sales certification, training and market readiness kits. With the help of Asigra’s automated backup software, it becomes easy for partners to concentrate on different business activities to achieve their target. Partners are given choices to select the level of involvement and stay responsive to meet the demands of clients with hybrid, public or private cloud services delivery.

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are valuable for demanding clients. SLAs develop trust of customers. Asigra cloud backup and recovery software can protect several Petabytes of data from one or many sources. In addition to maximum storage capacity, Asigra software is legally compliant for acts, such as: PCI-DSS, Data Protection Act, HIPAA, and Sarbanes-Oxley. Additional point that make Asigra trustworthy for backup service vendors and end users is its flawless reputation.

Asigra has developed a robust ecosystem with passion meticulously. It provides cost effective and perfect support program to beat the competition in the industry. Asigra has spent a great deal of time and energy in developing such a system. Partners are given immediate access to CDM (Channel Development Manager). Additionally, peer network is also within access of partners. Free partner conference is held annually to make Asigra ecosystem friendly and to exchange information and experiences among partners.

Asigra covers all avenues that lead towards business growth. It gives surety to manage risks, client retention, and profit optimization. Asigra partners provide reliable cloud backup services that are scalable, robust, risk aware and consistent to worldwide clients. Asigra cloud backup offers great features and has the ability to examine backup repositories to find out errors and when it finds one, it activates algorithms to rectify the error(s).

If you are interested to introduce services concerning data recovery and online data backup, Asigra is the ultimate destination to achieve your goals successfully.

We, at Backup Technology, know Asigra software inside out; and we have been Asigra’s partner since 2005, and 3D Hybrid partner since 2010. Let us help you with your cloud online backup, data storage and recovery needs.

Making Administration of Compliance Easy

October 30, 2015 Stewart Parkin

Compliance has been made frightening to most organizations through multiple regulatory mandates. It is now a difficult and tedious task to organize a product for SOX and PCI or HIPAA compliance. The manual workaround, auditing failures as well as intimidating pressure of disciplinary action under various acts makes gradual compliance unreasonable and undesirable. Therefore, enterprises are longing for easy compliance that are highly automated, tightly integrated, extensive, scalable and reliable solutions. Cloud computing services that incorporate superior capabilities, at the same time allow you to be in control of proliferating information and compliance requirements are now in high demand.

Automated cloud service that enable data collection, benchmark mapping, change of tracking, and report are designed to make auditing simple and easy, for both inside or outside the enterprise. For legal compliance, upbeat and proactive controls are created. In addition, they allow numerous compliance management and bring easy, centralized structure that permit definition of policy, as well as computerized compliance auditing process across platforms and environments. There is also provision of extensive library policies that set rules tackling some problems associated with compliance, which is built into some of the computing solutions in the cloud. This can be beneficial for automatically defining and scanning results on the dashboard that share similarity with the specific legal mandates. The outcome is that simplified compliance and permits viewing of data at a glance.

Majority cloud backup and storage systems come with uninterrupted features that burn out users that are unauthorized and tracks user’s activities. Changes to files, directories, registry keys, and provision of visible and immediate checkmating so as to avoid incident that may result in data compromise are kept by file integrity monitory software. The read and write protection and reconciliation maps in cloud backup systems, which follow changes to the original system, safeguarding sufficient security. For that reason, there is a reduction in management complexities while security is vastly made stronger.

Below are the functions of computing services in the cloud which you need to know:

– Help to centralize data management for the purpose of policy inspection, strategy, and reporting;
– Provide uninterrupted change management and integrity of configuration;
– Permit integration of software to prevent hosting intrusion, management against vulnerability, and control of application.

Users of cloud computing can be made aware of the incessant compliance expectations with uninterrupted visibility. With the help of cloud computing, labour intensive mistakes, errors of disconnected compliance products can be avoided. In addition, there is absolute reduction in the cost of compliance, as well as dramatic reduction in the complexity of operation with the help of cloud compliance. In fact, there are more to the benefits associated with cloud computing than what we have discussed above.

Asigra, the Best Cloud Backup Software, Powers BTL

October 28, 2015 Kris Price

In case you have not heard about Asigra, a disk to disk (D2D) data backup and vaulting solution, this article will introduce you. Asigra solution has been designed to address lots of serious compliance needs and provide data protection that is cost-effective. Its effortless software manages data life cycles, as well as allows a speedy recovery of data. Organizations may need to change their remote site backup or recovery procedures that based on legacy tape with high-tech and innovative backup systems that focus mainly on security of data in flight and at rest. Among the things that make Asigra software exceptional cloud backup solution include: hard coded security, agentless solution, and WAN optimization techniques.

The unique selling proposition (USP) for Asigra is its FIPS 140 certified cryptographic model. For refined security, Asigra encrypts data on the fly and stores it in the vaults in an encrypted format. Since Asigra’s launch in 1986, data stored under its software have never had any breach. In addition, there are no open firewall ports in Asigra and that is why is has never been hacked. Among the strengths of Asigra include: user authentication, encryption, role based access, secure offsite storage, as well as the granular level reports.

Asigra handles security and data privacy with second to none technology and provides protection for the major concerns of laws like: Data Protection Act, Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and HIPAA. Asigra makes sure that data is captured properly and accurately. It ensures that data is processed lawfully and access is limited to only authorized personnel in the organization. There is also definition of data process that does not go against the rights of the data owner. In order to ensure that all stipulations and provisions are adhered to, this disk to disk data vaulting solution enables data protection officers to speedily and simply answer to queries of data owners and establish periodic checks.

It important for you to know that Asigra Televaulting solution flawlessly protects and combines local, remote or branch office data to meet the terms on all the aforementioned legal mandates. In order to make it easy for organizations to comply with the regulatory acts that have long-term retention periods, such as the OSHA*, Asigra offers secure long-term data retention. For legal discovery and compliance, Asigra allows a much faster data access and recovery. Really, Asigra’s data lifecycle management technology makes sure that data that need to be destroyed is dealt with swiftly using proper controls of primary data preservation policies.

Asigra architecture has been recognized by industry experts as a leading cloud backup and storage solution with many industry-firsts in the areas of computerization, efficiency and security. This helps to reduce boring backup jobs and puts onsite and offsite data capture in place easily, migrate data from local servers to cloud based servers, and formation of backup strategies that are compliant. Asigra also provides the user with absolute control over backed up data, and also accommodates changes in strategies.

We, at Backup Technology Limited (BTL), are proud to be a 3D Hybrid Partner of Asigra since 2010. Please visit Asigra’s website for more information – www.asigra.com.

* http://goo.gl/wBJLbU

How Compliance Affects on Data Protection Strategies?

July 27, 2015 Kris Price

An organisation that is using data archiving software should give value to result oriented practises while designing policies for data archiving. No doubt, compliance plays an important role when policies are formed. It is the requirement that forces to conform to the rules and regulations. However, the rules and regulations may depend on the nature of business:

– In Specification or Standards — when a particular standard is adhered to, like Payment Card Industry (PCI) or International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) protection standards;

– In Regulatory — when the need is linked with specific type of compliance, such as HIPAA or Sarbanes-Oxley;

– In Legal — when the need is linked with specific data for investigation purposes or e-discovery.

Financial or medical industries are regulated more specifically than a small franchise in other service areas, which for instance, needs to follow PCI standards. However, such a franchise — or any business for that matter — must have some policies in place for legal and e-discovery.

Three basic considerations must be defined in order to determine how certain data should be archived and/or when the data should expire:

– Type of data – how important that data is for the organisation;

– Time period required for data protection – how long should the data be kept active;

– When archived data should be deleted.

In fact, compliance is the basis of data storage. Archives contain only a few relevant files for BDR. It is ridiculous to save short-term records as drafts or logs. If you have decided on what type of data is needed to be backed up, the next task is to check the required time period for keeping the protected data. For instance, IRS demands to keep documents related to tax protected for at least 7 years.

When a specific data is no more needed, it is time to remove the archived data. Most do not even bother to delete data as cloud backup is cheaper and is simpler solution for maximum data protection. Due to business continuity and compliance management, data is considered as valuable commodity. Data can be stolen to damage the reputation of a company; therefore, companies must keep backup of all files and documents, whether needed or not. This is one of the reasons why businesses have huge bulk of data stored in the cloud.

Though holding valuable data as backup helps during recovery process, but keeping expired data might cause many legal problems for companies. Federal regulations demand specific type of data to be retained if a company is charged for any wrong doing. Litigation experts claim that keeping unnecessary data beyond the required date may cause more problems for companies. More resources will be required to sift through the data. Furthermore, more data means, more chances of vulnerability. Companies must design and follow a policy for destruction of irrelevant data to avoid legal consequences.

Current legislation that demands proper procedures, as well as policies, also needs to have formal record of all data destruction and retention policies. Moreover, such policies are used as record to court that certain data no longer exist.
It is time to think about compliance as no organisation even desires to be charged for not following the law. When right compliance kit and compliance management is selected, companies can avoid legal issues.