New Virus & Spyware Removal by Hardware

The next step in protecting your computer from virus and spyware attack has just been released.

Detection, quarantining and cleaning of the latest virus & spyware threats is already a number one priority. But what happens when a virus or spyware attack gets through your best detection software configuration.

Every day, new malicious programmes are launched onto the net. Most are detected by the specialised detection algorithms included as part of your virus checker. Does this mean you don’t need a virus definition file for that exact virus before its detected? Well yes and no.

Yes? for the majority of malicious programmes released.

No? for the few unique or next generation malicious programmes that infect millions of computers before the necessary updates are released to inoculate your pc.

Well hopefully, and I really mean it, it will be detected and removed without any loss to you, but you are relying on your protection software to cleanly remove the malicious program.

When the worst happens and your pc is infected by a major virus or deeply imbedded spyware programme you can loose everything on it. Even if you have a perfect backup system you will be looking at many hours if not days formatting, loading and configuring your pc to get it back to its original state. Just think of the amount of time we have all spent setting up our computers to suit our needs.

Data Backup – Which is the Better Way?

Before we investigate which data backup method is a best fit for your business, we need to evaluate why and what you expect from your backup solution.

Obviously, we backup our data so we can continue trading after a disaster, but what type of disaster are you protecting yourself from and how quickly does your system need to be back online? Please think about this before you think of the usual stock answer, “I am protecting myself from all disasters and I want to be back online as soon as possible” easy to do if you have £500,000 budget and many man hours to devote to the task of backup. You need to be realistic about your backup and restore plan. Are you planning to recover from a hardware failure, total server failure, fire flood or any malicious event? Remember, the rule, the bigger the disaster you plan for, the bigger budget you will need.

Let’s look at the business backup options;

Tape Backup -

Is a solution which has been around for many years, recent technology means backup and restore is becoming faster and faster. The main benefit of tape based backup is the speed in which you can restore, tape solutions are now capable of moving data at rates of up to 80MB per second. The down side is the initial cost, a high end tape backup device will cost from £4,000 and can work their way up to hundreds of thousands. The software to control the backup starts at around £500 per device to be backed up and can escalate to £3000 per device. Cost of media, £30 per tape and usually you will need a minimum of 10 tapes.

Cost aside, the human intervention requirement can be a drain on resource, for example someone will need to ensure a tape is fitted into the backup device and removed offsite after the backup has taken place. Usually most company’s leave the tape inside the server overnight, leaving your backup exposed to the same threats as your server.