The Case For Putting Eggs in Multiple Baskets

Today hundreds of small businesses experienced web site outages. Go Daddy, the most popular domain registrar/web hosting company, saw its DNS servers attacked after 10AM Pacific time. The alleged attacker claimed to be working alone, to have taken down the entire Go Daddy DNS array and that he wanted to test the cyber security. DNS servers on the web are what translate the name of a web site (such as www.godaddy.com) to the numerical address assigned to it. Find a more detailed explanation of DNS here

Some businesses experienced more than just an inaccessible web site.  More and more businesses are turning to the cloud to host all of their technical operations. They run information databases and internet stores on hosted sites to save money. Quite often, small business owners don’t understand the security requirements of what they are doing online and opt for the less expensive option over a more secure option. One such business provides online database services to hundreds of non-profit organizations. Today, none of those non-profits could access their databases, creating a great deal of havoc for a lot of people.

If a business provides services to a considerable number of organizations, businesses or individuals, it is important that those services be available for them when they are needed. 

Always. 

 If those services are not available for any reason, including a hosting company under cyber-attack, the responsibility falls to the business. It is the business that has egg on its face. Yes, the host will get a bad reputation for being down and not prepared for an attack, but the business will have lost customers in the process.

How can the average small to medium business owner be prepared for such an event? Ideally, the data will be hosted on multiple mirrored sites so it is available from a backup site should the primary host go down. The smaller the business, the more difficult this is to put in action because of costs.

When considering internet host needs, certain pieces of information should be looked at:

·         Dependence on web-based services

·         Number of customers/clients needing access

·         Peak access times

·         Access time windows

·         Percentage of revenue created by web-based services

·         Importance of business reputation

If most of a business’ services are provided online, then those services need to be just as secure as in-house services for a business that doesn’t provide online service. The greater the revenue stream, the more interventions need to be in place.  A down server will not only cause an interruption in revenue, but it can cause irreparable damage to the reputation of the business.

Where money is at issue and the cost of a mirrored site exceeds the acceptable limitations of revenue, then another option should be considered. Check out service providers carefully, and ask for their policies on secure data transfer. Ask for information about how they backup their services and if they have redundancy in power, connectivity and DNS services. Get it all in writing. If they don’t have the protections in place that is needed, move on to another provider.

Do what it takes to protect your revenue streams and your business reputation. And don’t keep all your eggs in one basket!