File sharing is widespread and rapidly becoming “business as usual” for many companies and corporations.

The ability to share files with co-workers increases productivity and ultimately reduces costs. File sharing is, without a doubt, quick and convenient. However, file sharing is NOT backup and your employees may be creating corporate data security problems without realizing it. Sensitive corporate data or intellectual property can make its way to an employee’s mobile endpoint device. Not only could that device be lost, stolen, or otherwise compromised, but information can easily be changed, overwritten, and then synched. In short, existing sync/share products are not designed to sufficiently secure enterprise endpoint data.

Enterprise endpoint

Enterprise endpoint backup creates a secondary copy of data stored on endpoint devices (laptops, desktops, and smartphones), making it recoverable should the primary copy of data become corrupted or lost.

Ideal endpoint backup solutions should contain the following characteristics:

• Your cloud-based backup solution will not interrupt users or slow their productivity when backing up data.
• Your cloud-based backup solution will also de-duplicate data for superior performance and lower bandwidth requirements.
• Your cloud-based backup solution automatically retains multiple versions of files, so data can be recovered from several previous points in time.
• Your cloud-based backup solution will support complementary data management initiatives. These may include data migration, mobile data access, data loss prevention, and data compliance.

Keep in mind that the percentage of data shared, when compared to an organization’s overall data load, is relatively small. So why would you trust a file sync/share solution to bail you out in the event of data loss or emergency? The answer, of course, is that you wouldn’t.

Therefore, it becomes vital for an organization to have a robust backup solution in place to protect ALL of the data. RenovoData’s cloud backup, recovery, and restoration solutions provide clients with cost-effective, scalable, secure, and reliable methods of recovering and restoring data quickly. The system restores data regardless of location thus allowing business operations to resume seamlessly in the event of a disaster.

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If your company has employees that use a laptop, smartphone, or tablet, then you’ve got endpoint data. Traditionally, the responsibility of backing up the endpoint data rested with the individual. It was a situation that many IT departments gave little thought to or flat-out ignored… until the device was lost or stolen. Recent news stories about data breaches experienced by Cedars-Sinai and Coca-Cola, due to stolen laptops, blatantly illustrate the need for formal endpoint backup procedures.

Endpoint data backups concern companies of all sizes. Many companies may allow their employees to BYOD (bring-your-own-device). These devices are set to number upwards of 196 million within the United States alone by 2016.1 Typically, BYOD devices have both business and personal uses for employees which may further complicate the situation. Users possessing these endpoint devices want access to their data from anywhere and at any time, which has ushered in various file sync and sharing solutions, such as Dropbox.

However, endpoint data backup should not be confused with file sync or file sharing. One of the key differences is that endpoint data backup must include a point-in-time backup. With file sync, the files are updated to the most recent version. What if the most recent version is infected or corrupted? If that happens, then the file is -at a minimum- lost. The worst-case scenario in this situation would be corrupted or infected data propagating across all devices in the file sync system.

File Sync and Share services are rapidly increasing in popularity because they allow users the ability to access key files from a variety of devices. The information can be accessed without going through a corporate VPN or firewall. Files can be shared with other users for collaboration within the organization or outside. For this reason, the data cannot be considered truly backed up unless other steps are taken to secure the information. Some users do not appreciate this key distinction and must be made aware of the potential risks. We will explore this issue further in upcoming blog posts and white papers—so stay tuned!