Safe Data Storage Blog

Safe Data Storage passes Cyber Essentials Plus !

As Safe Data Storage continues to grow, we like to keep up our reputation as being the safe and secure backup and recovery service that our customers know and love. That means we have to make sure our network is protected at all times from any potential threats that may arise. In that regard and as you may be aware, we acquired the Cyber Essentials certification.

By acquiring the Cyber Essentials certification, Safe Data Storage was able to show that we have all the required security controls in place to keep our systems protected. However, this certification only goes by our word and external scan. Whilst great to have, we wanted to be able to prove that we have all these controls in place and show our clients that we have secure systems for their data.

Therefore, we are proud to announce that we have acquired the Cyber Essentials PLUS certification! This certification has all the same requirements as the standard Cyber Essentials scheme, but the critical difference, is that we were required to have an independent assessment by a CREST approved auditor to make sure we have the five security controls in place. This assessment involved a vulnerability scan of our internal network, to check we had everything in place, which we are proud to say we have passed.

Cyber Essentials PLUS

The Cyber Essentials scheme is a cyber security standard, launched on 5th June 2014, which organisations can be assessed and certified against. There are two levels to this certification: Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus.

The scheme identifies the security controls that an organisation must have in place within their IT infrastructure in order to have confidence that they are addressing cyber security effectively and that their systems are protected from external and internal threats.

Since 1st October 2014, all suppliers must be compliant with the specified security controls and certified with Cyber Essentials if they’re considering bidding for government contracts which involve the handling of sensitive and personal information.

The scheme has five main technical security controls:

Boundary Firewalls and Internet Gateways
Secure Configuration
Access Control
Malware Protection
Patch Management

It provides organisations with the knowledge of how to implement these measures in their cyber security efforts, whilst also learning how they can improve their current systems if they are found not to be adequate.

Potentially Malicious Emails

In a previous post about internet security and potentially malicious emails, I described what to look out for in terms of emails might contain a virus like Zeus. Now I can show you what to look out for after one landed in my ‘Junk’ box –

As I said, luckily this email ended in my ‘Junk’ folder, but that is not always the case. Yes, it might be a genuine email but considering points 2 and 3…I think not.
The name ‘Frieda Barker’ means absolutely nothing to me, and the email address it came from – wiszbbcoi @ theteedgroup . com – seems suspicious, especially considering the name. A quick Google tells me that The Teed Group is in fact a real company, but they sell water front property in Connecticut which, let’s be honest, is not something I can fiscally even consider investing in. In 50+ years maybe…
Invoice is spelt wrong and the invoice number means nothing to me. Be warned, sometimes you’ll receive an email from an address that seems legit and that you order from a lot but the invoice number will not correlate with any that you have been issued.
4. This symbol means the email has an attachment; it is in this attachment where the Trojan is that will download the virus/viruses onto your PC.

Suffice to say this email has now been deleted.

Please, be safe online and don’t open any email or attachment unless sure it is genuine.

If you believe you have lost money due to malware you can report your loss to Action Fraud at www.actionfraud.police.uk or call 0300 123 2040.

Written by Rosey Walls 16/06/2014

Enhancements for our Resellers

We have a couple of new features for our resellers when they login to our portal.

Resellers can now view users storage in an easy to read line graph to show clients usage history. This page shows total storage and also include their clients retention data.

We have also added a nice new graph to show all clients total data with a 12 month history window.These new features will show within your portal by the end of Monday if not already visible.More enhancements to follow shortly…..Have an enhancement request? email support@safedatastorage.co.uk

Top 10 Users Added for Resellers

You asked, so we have listened.

A number of resellers requested a way to easily view there largest file cloud backup accounts, so we created a “top 10 users” pageHere it shows in a easy to view pie chart their top ten users. click on the user to take you straight to the client account to view or modify.

Next request in progress, Image Backup usage graphs.

Image Backup Stats added to Resellers Panel

Three additional statistics for our re-sellers when they login to our portal.

New Image Backup Stats to easily view all your combined Client Image backup usage. View by current month, last month, last 3, 6, 9 and 12 months stats.

“Top 10 Image users” See you’re top 10 Image Backups users in a clear easy to read pie chart.

Total Storage Stats Image + File Backup Usage. Now resellers can see their total storage with us, not just file backup. Again you can view by current month, last month, last 3, 6, 9 and 12 months stats.

Engineers Achieve SCE certifications

Safe Data Storage is proud to announce that two of our engineers have successfully reached StorageCraft Certified Engineer (SCE) Status after passing their exams last week.

This enhances our ability to design and implement a disaster recovery solution based on StorageCraft products and technologies.

As Gold Partners of StorageCraft, it’s vital we have the technical expertise to help our customers achieve their Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO)

It’s not just about backing up data, it’s about Planning, Protecting, Managing and Restoring your systems in the event of a disaster.For more information on how we can help, please contact us support@safedatastorage.co.uk

Replication site now migrated to Bournemouth

We are proud to announce that we have completed the migration of our replication site from Maidenhead to Bournemouth data centre over the weekend.

This move has helped future proof our replication site for a number of reasons which include:-

Increased power per rack
Additional Racks
Hands on technicians
Avoiding possible disruption with various
upgrades at Maidenhead

With a 3ms latency, our 1 Gb interconnect between our primary data centre “City Reach” located in Docklands can replicate with ease to our the new Bournemouth replication site.

Bournemouth cloud data backup data center (external)

Bournemouth cloud data backup data center (internal)

Migration completed 06/06/2015

Don’t send successful emails

Excluding successful emails, as requested.

As requested by a number of partners, due to ticket systems receiving all backup emails, you now have the option “Don’t send successful emails”.

It is a simple tickbox that is located in the “settings” tab of your partner panel. Having the ability to only receive failed backup emails means that you can quickly get any backup problems resolved.

ISO 27001:2017 Certificate: What it means to Safe Data Storage Ltd

Safe Data Storage is delighted to announce that we have successfully been certified in ISO 27001:2017, an International Standard in Information Security and the protection of assets.

ISO 27001:2017 is an externally audited certification that analyses the business on data security management processes and the controls that have been put into place to keep the information secure. This certification means our customers can be assured of reliance of service, alongside the quality (ISO 9001:2015 achieved earlier this year). It means we provide a consistent service and can help protect company assets and minimize risks.

An Information Security Management System is a framework of policies and procedures that includes all legal, physical and technical controls involved in an organisation’s information risk management processes. Security risk is difficult to quantify, ISO 27001:2017 ensures that Safe Data Storage manages its risks in structured and appropriate manner. Avoiding security incidents maintains confidence with our customers and other organisations.

Achieving this professional standard, that is internationally recognised, will enable us to have a strong market presence as more businesses and organisations are requiring ISO 27001:2017.

We keep our clients’ data safe and secure at all timesand are dedicated to protecting our clients from cyber threats, confidentiality breaches and fraud by storing and transmitting data as securely as possible.

Is your business’ data safe? Research suggests it’s probably not…

New research carried out in the U.S. has revealed that the majority of businesses who store credit card data using cloud storage are not doing so securely.

Information Management reported today that research by the company reviews aggregator Clutch found that over 60% of small businesses that use cloud storage for customer credit card and banking information were not storing this data securely.

Clutch’s research polled the IT decision-makers at 300 small businesses in the U.S. who currently use cloud storage.

In addition, the results showed that 54% of companies that store medical data do not do so securely.

By not storing this data securely, the businesses are breaching industry regulations on data storage.

In the U.S., this can lead to fines of millions of dollars and of course huge damage to a company’s reputation.

Keeping your customers’ data secure is crucial for any business

However, just as important – in the U.S. and everywhere else – is the need to protect customers’ sensitive financial information.

Being unable to reassure customers that their credit card and other personal information will be safe may lead to a downturn in business as customers will not feel confident giving you their data.

More than simply comprising customers’ privacy, having this kind of data unsecured leaves them at financial risk through the danger of fraud.

In the UK, with the new General Data Protection Regulation incoming, the need to ensure your cloud storage is secure and follows industry guidelines is also more important than ever.

Data breaches of unsecured cloud storage have featured heavily in the news recently. Just yesterday it was revealed that data on 123 million households in the U.S. was leaked due to a breach of an Amazon Web Services storage bucket used by a marketing company.

According to the security researcher who discovered the breach, the data included 248 fields of information for each household, meaning that “billions of personally identifying details and data points about virtually every American household” were made visible.

Safe Data Storage provide secure, fully-managed cloud backup services with extensive technical support. Data is encrypted and stored in two data centres, both based in the UK.

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