Prevent data alteration - security protection measures

One of the key elements of computer security, apart from defending against intrusions and attacks, is to prevent data alteration in such a way that whenever an attack on your computer has been successful, you will still have your data and be able to restore your computer to full functionality and good use.

There are many reasons why you should think about post-disaster scenarios. First of all, no computer is 100% secure. Even the most sophisticated networks protected by firewalls and intrusion systems and million dollar security measures, are being broken into from time to time by online attackers. Most computer users and businesses are permanently connected to the Internet in these days, since their daily life and business operations require it. Most computer users and businesses have limited budgets to allocate to security measures. Therefore, we can say that each of our computers, if connected to the Internet, is at risk and some day it will likely be affected by one or other damaging factors. Even computer experts may have their computers breached from time to time, despite their training and all prevention measures.

The reason is simple. There is an ongoing battle in the realm of computer security, amongst attackers on one side, and network administrators/webmasters on the other. While the security personnel and financial resources available to most businesses are very small, and tend to zero in the case of home computer users, the number of attackers out there is huge, and each of these attackers can use wide range scanning tools to identify vulnerable computers and hack into them. On one hand, the defender (security tech) has to identify each security vulnerability and patch each of these security holes in a proper manner, within very limited timeframe; on the other hand, a huge number of attackers with proper software tools at their disposal, have all the time they need and they only need to find one vulnerability to get in.

Thus being said, it is only a matter of time until your computer gets affected. Apart from intruders accessing and perhaps destroying your data, viruses and trojans may corrupt your files, delete needed data and sometimes wipe your entire hard disk. In such cases, all you can do is to take your hard drive to a computer expert for data recovery service and attempt to revover your data. Such operations are extremely expensive, and results are poor.

Therefore, it becomes obvious that you need to prevent data alteration first of all. The most important thing you can do (and you need to do) is to backup your data. This may be a time consuming and tedious task - but there is no other measure like it. During backup, create copies of your hard drive contents and files, either on CD or DVD or on specialised devices, and store them in a safe place (in a different location if possible). You also need to have boot disks available and recovery disks if possible; when you are installing an operating system or piece of critical software, always create boot disks and recovery disks when prompted. These disks may come in very handy at a later date when data alteration happens to your computer, and you need to get it back working as soon as possible.

Whenever data alteration occurs on your computer due to improper security measures, you can always restore your files from the backup. There are files that should never get lost - for example almost any business depends on the integrity of its business files and data; and whenever such information is altered or lost, the damage is enormous. Studies have shown that half of the businesses affected by data loss disasters have never recovered and most have been closed shortly after.