Data Loss and Financial Institutions
By: James Walsh

In fact everyday business involves collating data, data transactions and establishing data bases. One can therefore imagine what a nightmare it can be to lose data.

While most if not every large organization has relevant backup, there are always instances that one does not reckon for that results in huge data loss. While the convenience of online banking is immeasurable, the inconvenience of data loss is unimaginable.

Data Loss Situations

There are established records that reveal personal information of about 35,000 Californians which were improperly accessed by criminals posing to represent legitimate businesses. Another bank once announced that 1.2 million of its customer’s account information was lost in transit. A data storage firm was reported have lost personal information of about 60,000 employees. A courier service was known to have computer tapes containing information of over 3 million customers of a particular bank.

The above instances mostly cite examples of data loss due to sabotage and theft. There are several other causes that can result in data loss. Human error, while being accidental can lead to data loss. Natural disasters always find people unprepared and the resultant loss can be catastrophic and in some instances may lead to a company winding up completely.

Losing data that establishes your business is like functioning without a heart beat. Data loss in financial institutions is a death knell for the company and its customers whose financial history rests in the custody of the company. To recreate transaction histories of thousands of customers without data backup is impossible.

Data Recovery

While it would be a really archaic financial institution to be caught in a situation of having absolutely no backup, recovering data can be an expensive proposition. Since the volumes of data that these institutions work with are huge, it would require experts to dedicate several man hours to recover the data. The value of the data involved makes it necessary to handover recovery to professionals and not any cheap recovery service. Large companies that carry out data recovery are expensive. Data Recovery is a highly specialized procedure that requires highly sanitised environs. A good company that hires only professionals and maintains clean rooms for data recovery is bound to be expensive. This added to the volume of data needed to be recovered can be an expensive affair. However, losing the data entirely will be far more expensive and therefore most companies do not mind the cost of recovering data.

A Robust Backup Plan

Considering the importance of data to financial institutions, as a manager, one has to have a solid backup plan in place. While a manager should ensure that regular backup happens automatically, there should be a disaster recovery plan in place too. If a bank or any other financial institution is hit by a natural disaster, having an onsite backup will not be of great help.

To be prepared for the worst kind of disaster, it is necessary that remote backup is made a part of the recovery plan. Remote backup ensures that data is secure in a remote location and can be restored in the event of a disaster. To minimise data loss, remote backup should be an automatic process so that it is as current as possible. Having up to date backup will reduce downtime and loss of data.

Conclusion

There will always be a situation that finds one unprepared but because the loss of data to financial institutions is so great, they have to prepare for the worst. Detailed records of data bases and customer transactions have to be backed up and be made secure. The importance of backup of vital files and records cannot be an isolated operation and requires support from the bottom rung up.

Managers in financial institutions should even have backup seminars for the bottom line so they can understand fully how an oversight on one person’s part can be catastrophic. One mistake is all it takes to result in huge data loss and therefore no expense should be spared to avert this mistake.

In the current scenario most financial institutions have had a bad experience and therefore are prepared with secure backup and a fairly fool proof recovery plan.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleJoe.com

James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. If you are concerned about data loss and would like more information on www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk“>Data Recovery see www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk

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