Cybersecurity Blog

Don’t wait until it’s too late: The importance of backing up your data

03/25/2025

 

Imagine this: You’ve just spent weeks working on a research paper or compiling critical data for your thesis, only to wake up one morning to find your laptop won’t turn on. Or perhaps you’re in the final stretch of submitting an important assignment when a sudden hard drive failure wipes out all your work. These scenarios might sound like nightmares, but they are very real threats to students and faculty alike.

March 31 is World Backup Day, a global reminder that protecting your data is just as important as creating it. Whether you’re a student, researcher, or faculty member, understanding the importance of backing up your files can save you from devastating data loss.

Why Backing Up Matters

University life revolves around data—lecture notes, research files, coursework, projects, and administrative documents. If you lose access to these materials due to hardware failure, accidental deletion, or even cyber threats like ransomware, the consequences can be severe. Regular backups ensure that your work is protected and can be restored quickly, minimizing disruptions.

University Work: Where to Save Your Files

At the University, ITS regularly backups up data stored on network drives or the Google drive. You can rest easy knowing if anything happens to your data, it can be recovered.  That is unless you store your data on your C: drive or desktop. Data stored there is not backed up and may be lost if your device encounters issues.

The 3-2-1 Backup Rule for Home Use

For personal data at home, the 3-2-1 backup strategy is widely recommended:

  1. Keep at least three copies of your data: your original file plus two backups.
  2. Use two different storage types: for example, an external hard drive and a cloud service.
  3. Store one copy offsite: such as in a secure cloud storage solution to protect against local disasters like theft or fire.

Additionally, you should enable automatic backups at home to ensure your data is consistently protected without requiring manual effort. Windows and OS both offer options to schedule automatic backups, reducing the risk of forgetting to back up important files.

How to Get Started

  • Use Cloud Storage: Services like OneDrive, Google Drive, or Dropbox provide automatic syncing and offsite backups.
  • External Hard Drives: Regularly back up your data to an external hard drive or SSD to have a local copy.
  • Automate Your Backups: Many operating systems allow you to schedule automatic backups, reducing the risk of human error.
  • Test Your Backups: A backup is only useful if it works when needed. Periodically check your backups to ensure your files are retrievable.

Make Every Day a Backup Day

World Backup Day serves as a valuable reminder, but protecting your data should be a year-round practice. Taking just a few minutes to set up a reliable backup system today can save you hours—or even years—of work in the future. Don’t be the person who learns the hard way. Back up your data now!

 

Firefox’s LinkedIn data breach notification – 10/04/21

If you use Firefox with your Mount Royal email address, you may have received this email in your inbox this morning:

 

This is a new feature of Firefox. It is important to note however that this “data breach” isn’t really a data breach. If you look closely, it is titled LinkedIn Scraped Data. Also while it says that the “breach” was added to their system October 2, 2021, the so called “breach” actually took place months ago.

What is scraped data? It is when an attacker scrapes publicly available data off of a website.  So technically it isn’t a data breach as the attackers didn’t break into any servers. However, it does take a lot of time and skill to gather that much data at once. As a result few people do it themselves. It is much easier to wait for someone else to do it and then buy the data from them.

What do they use the data for once they buy it? They use it to target you with phishing emails and other social engineering attacks. While there is no need to worry about your LinkedIn password or username being compromised, this is a good time to double check exactly what you have posted publicly on LinkedIn. Be wary of any communications referencing that information in the future, someone may be trying to use it against you.