With the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming in next May, it’s no wonder that businesses are focusing their efforts on data protection. However, Disaster Recovery (DR) is an element of GDPR that often seems to go unconsidered.
The potential backlash of a Disaster Recovery failure recently made headlines with British Airways’ (BA) recent IT disaster, which has left them with many disgruntled customers and a market value drop of £170 million.
You can train your staff, create plans or create systems to prevent IT disasters, but the truth is they will still happen – usually at the most unexpected of times. It doesn’t necessarily have to be in the event of a cyber attack. Employee failure, natural disasters, security breaches, and hardware failures are just some of the many ways a disaster can strike.
It is crucial that businesses have a comprehensive DR plan to ensure they can cope with any potential disasters and get back up and running as soon as possible to comply with GDPR - failure to do so could lead to fines of 4% of turnover or €20 million, whichever is greater. Not only does this mean you will face a severe financial loss, but there is also the risk of substantial reputational damage that stems from any sort of data theft.