• Home
• News
  • Business Continuity News
  • Regional news
  • Sector news
  • Events Diary
  • Newsletters
  • Newsfeed
• Jobs
• Topics
  • BC: Facilities & Buildings
  • BC: General
  • BC: Markets & Companies
  • BC: Plan Development
  • BC: Software
  • BC: Statistics
  • BC: Testing & Exercising
  • Crisis Comms & Management
  • Critical Infrastructure Protection
  • Disaster Recovery
  • Emergency Management
  • Enterprise Risk Management
  • Operational Risk Management
  • Pandemic Planning
  • PS Prep
  • Standards
  • Terrorism
• Technology
  • Cloud Computing
  • Data Center / Centre Issues
  • ICT Continuity
  • Information Security
  • Recovery Facilities
• Resources
  • Webinars
  • BC software directory
  • Newsfeed
  • Twitter
  • Advanced BC information
  • Advanced ICT information
  • Basic BC information
  • Basic ICT information
  • How to advertise
  • About us
  • Contact us
  • Privacy
• Newsletters
• Training

WELCOME TO THE CONTINUITY CENTRAL ARCHIVE SITE

Please note that this is a page from a previous version of Continuity Central and is no longer being updated.

To see the latest business continuity news, jobs and information click here.

Distribute IT failure highlights the importance of maintaining offsite backups

Belts and braces business continuity requires an offsite backup of critical data on physical media.

In the light of the recent devastating cyber attacks on DistributeIT.com.au, Computer Networks CEO, Brian Pereira, is warning companies to think twice before totally entrusting organizations with one of their most important assets - data. Why Distribute IT did not have any offsite backups in place is the main question posed by Computer Networks.

The 11th June cyber attack on DistributeIT.com.au saw the Australian domain register and hosting company lose more than 4800 websites hosted on their now ‘unrecoverable’ servers. Due to backup systems being hosted online the hackers were able to cause permanent damage to backup systems as well as core services.

The failure of DistributeIT.com.au to have an offsite backup of critical data on physical media resulted not only in the loss of its own business but has also had knock on impacts for its many customers.

DistributeIT.com.au has now been acquired by Netregistry Group who state: “We are aware that many Distribute.IT customers have lost backups of their websites. Regrettably it may be impossible for us to retrieve your files, however we will give you tools to get a website online as soon as you receive login details to our system. If your web designer has a backup of the site, FTP access will be provided to upload the content. All customers will shortly receive an email outlining further information regarding your services.”

The lesson is simple: in the rush towards virtualization and cloud computing don’t lose sight of the basics of business continuity management. An offsite backup of critical data on physical media is vital.

MAKE A COMMENT

DistributeIT.com.au customers requiring assistance should visit http://www.netregistry.com.au/distributeit

•Date: 24th June 2011 • Region: Australia / World •Type: Article • Topic: ICT continuity

Sign up for Continuity Briefing, our weekly roundup of business continuity news. For news as it happens, subscribe to Continuity Central on Twitter.