You never know when an IT disaster might strike, yet many companies don’t seem to take the threat of catastrophes seriously. The consequences can be severe, including revenue loss, break in business operations, furious customers and damage to the brand. In fact, some businesses have no choice but to shut down after having been struck by a disaster.
We’re not only talking natural disasters, but also man-made ones, which means no company is safe no matter where in the world it’s based. Let’s take a look at five catastrophes that can have a devastating impact on your company’s IT systems.
Weather
In recent decades it seems like there has been an increasing number of weather-related disasters that only seem to be getting bigger and more potent. Hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, fires, heat waves and thunderstorms can do some real damage to your IT systems.
Man-made
Man-made disasters can be intentional, such as sabotage or terrorism, and unintentional such as a simple human error or an accident. A hacker could wipe out your whole databases or an employee might make a mistake due to lack of training.
Fires
Huge amounts of money is spent every year to pay for damage caused by fires. Fires can be the consequence of a human error, overheating of electronic equipment, natural disasters and poor security planning, just to name a few.
Water pipe breaks
If a water pipe breaks close to power cables or electric equipment there can be severe damage on your IT systems. Freezing water in pipes during winter, old pipes and wear and tear of pipes can be the reason for the burst.
Cascading failures
This is a failure in a system of interconnected parts in which the failure of one part can trigger the failure of successive parts. It can also occur in computer networks, where network traffic is impaired or halted to or between larger sections of the network. The cause is often the overloading of a single, crucial router or node, which will cause the alternative node to fail and so on until the whole system fails.
To be prepared for a disaster is essential in order to minimise the potential damage, recover and get your business operations up and running as fast as possible, make sure your data is not lost due to no back-up plan and most importantly to protect your employees and other people.
Every company should have a disaster recovery plan that is updated regularly. If your company doesn’t have one, it’s time to speak to us.
