COMP 552

Introduction to Cybersecurity Spring 2022

Lab Report #: Lab 3 Backup Solutions and Strategies

Due Date: June 5, 2022
Submission Method: Dropbox

Submitted by: Sravya Nunemunthala

Student ID: 10273334
Section: 01
Date submitted: June 3, 2022
Instructor submitted to: George Seto

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Introduction:

To become familiar backup solutions and strategies considerations in organizations

Activities:

 Discussed about data backup strategies, why it should be considered and its importance.
 Discussed about difference between data archiving and data backup.
 Advantages and disadvantages of open source software backup.

Discussion:

Part 1:

Developers have created a plethora of solutions that allow you to backup data over the last
several decades. Choosing the best choice for your organization's size and purpose is critical to
making the most of your data backup plan. The most prevalent data backup solutions are
shown below.

 Cloud Backup Solutions: Cloud migration has been a major topic in recent years, with
more businesses than ever turning to cloud services to store data. Cloud backups
provide you with the assurance that you have off-site copies of all your critical enterprise
information. They provide extra protection and redundancy, ensuring that data is instantly
available in the event of a calamity.

 Data Backup Software: Hardware appliances and external hard drives are typically easier
to deploy than software, but the flexibility and extra capabilities make it vital for many
enterprises' data backup plan. You may specify which data and systems to back up,
automate the backup process, and assign certain devices to different categories of data.

 External Hard Drives: External hard drives with high capacity are essential components of
many businesses' backup processes, especially when paired with archiving software.
This program allows users to recover files from an external hard drive, reducing RPO to a
few minutes. As the demand for your services rises and data quantities increase, a single
hard disc will no longer suffice. In this case, a more comprehensive data backup
mechanism called as redundancy is frequently implemented.

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 Removable Media: Using portable data storage media such as USB sticks, DVDs, and Blu-
Ray discs is one of the most traditional and straightforward methods of doing manual
backups. While this may be sufficient for modest operations, higher amounts of data
need progressively massive drives, complicating the recovery process. Furthermore, you
must ensure that data backups are maintained in a secondary place to minimise loss in
the event of a disaster or on-site theft.

Backups are crucial for protecting sensitive data, but what happens if servers fail or there is an
issue with your backup cloud storage? This is why, in addition to your data backup strategy, you
should establish a disaster recovery plan. This assures that there is a system through which to
get data if something goes wrong. Downtime can result in severe profits loss, and having a
backup strategy in place can completely reduce any downtime caused by system problems,
criminal agents, or natural disasters.

Here are some of the reasons why a company should make data backups and install a disaster
recovery solutions:
 Preventive measures don’t always work: Businesses should take a proactive approach to
cybersecurity by deploying network security solutions, robust firewall setups, and patch
management tools, but they also require solutions to mitigate data loss. SMBs are
definitely not immune to having their data stolen or encrypted by ransomware, yet 68
percent of SMBs do not have a disaster recovery strategy, according to Nationwide
Insurance study. Every firm, large or small, must have a strategy in place to deal with the
fallout from natural catastrophes, server outages, and other difficult scenarios.

 Cyberattacks are constantly evolving: Cyberattacks on sensitive company information

kept in the cloud or on-premises are common. Because of digital transformation, which
has become a crucial driver for firms in every industry, the frequency of cyberattacks has
grown. Today's businesses are seeing a large flood of data for every action, from lead
generation to customer conversion, and attackers are ready to profit on this continual
stream of data.

 Cloud computing demands additional backups: Moving your on-premises activities to the
cloud can save your company money and minimize administrative costs, but it is not
without hazards. When organizations store corporate data in the cloud, they entrust the
security of that data to the cloud provider.
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Part 2:

The difference between data archiving and data backup are:

Backup Archive
S.No
A backup is a duplicate of your current data An archive is a collection of historical
1 that you may use to recover the original data data that must be kept for long-term
if it ever becomes corrupted. retention purposes, such as
compliance.
2 Backup safeguards both active and dormant Archive solutions are frequently used
data. You can back up your data via tape, to keep inactive or older data for long
disc, or the cloud. A backup is a copy of the periods of time. Archives are designed
production data. Your data is still stored on for long-term, low-cost storage.
the production storage systems. That Because archives store production
implies that even if your backup system data, the loss or corruption of an
suffers a large data loss, regular operations archive system will almost always
can continue. Your production data will not result in the irreversible loss of
be affected, but you will be operating at a production data. Remember that this
higher risk. data is likely to be older or less utilized,
but it may also be the only copy.
3 Backup data is stored on deduplication Individual data items, such as email
equipment or tape libraries for quicker messages, files, and databases, as well
access to massive amounts of data. Backup as their metadata, are stored in this
software may be used to safeguard format. An archive can enable rapid,
application and operating system files, as targeted access to stored data, making
well as individual data items, however they it simple to locate that precise email
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are designed for larger-scale recoveries. It is from five years ago. Metadata might
ideal for restoring apps or whole systems. help you narrow down your search for
material. However, unlike backup
systems, archives do not provide
volume level or whole server recovery.
4 Backup is inextricably linked with disaster Disaster recovery for your archive
recovery. IT workers frequently conduct system can be complex and expensive
backup processes to secure their data, as to maintain. Because most replication
well as a separate procedure to move data methods are proprietary, organizations
outside for disaster recovery purposes, are frequently obliged to acquire
resulting in a sophisticated data protection equivalent, costly archive systems.
strategy. Unlike typical DR, the archive system's
capacity to regulate replication, rewind
data to earlier restore points, and limit
bandwidth utilization differs greatly.

Part 3:

McAfee is a security firm that specializes on internet security. It covers online privacy and
identity protection tools, as well as antivirus and antimalware software for Windows, macOS,
iOS, and Android devices.
Features of backup :
 Comprehensive platform coverage: You require security for all of your environments,
whether virtual machines, bare metal, or cloud. If you use virtual computers, seek for a
solution that is compatible with all of your hypervisors.
 Comprehensive application coverage: Applications cannot afford prolonged downtime.
Application-aware backup solutions may create consistent backups while demanding
little downtime from essential database and other corporate products.
 Flexible Backup Targets: Look for backup options such as tape, disc, or cloud. Consider
specialized backup appliances or solutions that interact with storage manufacturers'
snapshot functions.
 Protection Against Malware: Because backups are your recovery plan against malware,
especially ransomware, seek for backup software that includes malware protection.
Ransomware cannot encrypt immutable backups.
 Performance and Scalability: The volume of big data continues to expand. Backup
solutions must backup data quickly while without overloading the network. Look for
backup systems that employ deduplication and compression to reduce the load on the
network and storage.

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The Mcafee plan is the best plan and has many features and I would not change the plan. The
above features describe that my plan has the good features with which my backup is updated
regularly.

Part 4:

Two open-source software solutions:

 Areca: Areca backup is well known for the open source private backup support solution
offered by GPL, which stands for General Public License. The enabled users have
precedence in selecting backup of the files set or directory, selecting the location where
data may be saved, and post backup process setup. This program includes data
encryption, file compression, and a variety of other tasks. Customers will eventually be
able to use sophisticated backup options via areca, such as delta backup, zip archives,
and other basic copies of source data. This is a Windows and Linux-compatible solution.
 Duplicati: Duplicati software is compatible with all operating systems, including Windows,
MacOS, and Linux, as well as a variety of common protocols such as SS, FTP, cloud
services, and WebDAV. For the user's recommendation to find its answer, strong
encryption is required. It is also GPL-licensed, and most users may keep encrypted,
incremental, compressed backups on cloud storage servers and external file servers. In
addition, the program provides a variety of transfer choices, including filters, deletion
rules, and bandwidth options for running backups for certain resources.

Conclusion:

This Lab is very much helpful for getting to know about backups and how do the companies use
backup and also got to know the difference between archives and backups. This lab taught
about what kind of features should a person look for in a backup software.

References:
 https://connectusfund.org/7-main-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-open-source-
software
 https://opensource.com/article/19/3/backup-solutions
 https://rewind.com/blog/data-backup-software-what-how-work/#:~:text=Data
%20backup%20software%20is%20a%20software%20solution%20that%20is
%20installed,data%20center%2C%20or%20the%20cloud.
 https://www.acronis.com/en-us/blog/posts/data-backup/
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 https://financesonline.com/backup-software-analysis-features-benefits-pricing/

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