Common Threat to Data Loss: Natural Disasters

In today’s digital landscape, data is one of the most vital assets for businesses and organizations. Unfortunately, data systems are increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters, which can lead to catastrophic data loss, corruption, or inaccessibility. These events pose a significant threat to continuity and can disrupt operations, severely impacting a business’s ability to serve customers. This article explores the risks natural disasters pose to data, offers statistics to illustrate the impact, and provides real-world examples alongside actionable steps organizations can take to protect their data from these unpredictable threats.

Understanding Natural Disasters and Data Impact

A natural disaster is any catastrophic event caused by the Earth’s natural processes, which can severely damage infrastructure, property, and lives. When these events impact businesses, they often compromise or destroy essential data systems, leading to data loss through hardware destruction, power outages, or data corruption. These are the eight most common types of disasters in our environment:

1. Fires: Uncontrolled fires, whether wildfires or structural fires, can lead to extreme heat, which destroys electronic devices and their data storage components.
2. Floods: Flooding from storms or rising water levels can cause irreparable damage to data centers and storage devices.
3. Earthquakes: Shaking from earthquakes can disrupt power, damage infrastructure, and lead to the physical destruction of servers and other data storage equipment.
4. Tornadoes: High-speed winds and flying debris from tornadoes can destroy buildings and any data infrastructure inside them.
5. Hurricanes: Hurricanes combine wind, rain, and flooding, making them particularly dangerous for data storage centers and office infrastructure.
6. Landslides: Landslides can wipe out entire buildings and cause massive power outages that lead to data loss.
7. Tsunamis: With their massive waves and flooding, tsunamis can engulf entire coastal regions, destroying hardware and impacting regional power.
8. Pandemics: Though indirect, pandemics can strain resources and interrupt data backup and security protocols due to workforce limitations and increased cyberattacks during periods of increased vulnerability.

Statistics on the Impact of Data Loss Due to Natural Disasters

The process of recovering lost data and restoring business continuity following a natural disaster often comes with severe operational and monetary consequences:

• The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) estimates that fire causes about $12 billion in direct property damage annually in the United States, impacting data systems due to direct physical damage.
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that 75% of data centers in high-risk areas have experienced a power outage or data loss due to natural disasters.
• The Ponemon Institute found that the average cost of a data center outage is $740,357, with natural disasters cited as a leading cause for extended and costly outages.
• According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 40% to 60% of small businesses never reopen after a natural disaster impacts their data and operational infrastructure.
• In 2020, the World Bank estimated that floods caused $85 billion in damages globally, affecting not only physical infrastructure but also corporate and government data systems.

Recently in the News: Comprehensive Disaster Recovery Plan Saves Critical Data Access

In the summer of 2021, Ochsner Health, a nonprofit health system that serves Louisiana, Mississippi, and the Gulf South was already dealing with a huge surge in COVID-19 cases when their natural disaster problem doubled thanks to Hurricane Ida, a category four storm with 155-mile-per hour winds, arriving that August.

Ochsner Health operates 46 hospitals and more than 370 health and urgent care centers in the Gulf Coast area, and Hurricane Ida severely impacted physical structures as well as key infrastructures throughout the entire region.

Ochsner Health faced facility challenges with roof and water damage at many locations, compounded by power outages, failed generators, and severe flooding which impacted their patient data access and electronic medical record (EMR) systems, too. However, through their comprehensive disaster recovery plan and cloud-based backups, they managed to restore critical data access within days and maintained patient care operations. Their strategy, honed by addressing 2005’s Hurricane Katrina failures, demonstrated the importance of robust data protection in the face of disaster and the ability to recover quickly for patient continuity.

For more details on how Ochsner Health dealt with these combined natural disasters, refer to the American Medical Association article or Ochsner Health’s President & CEO, Warner Thomas’s 2021 recap video.

Preventative and Recovery Measures to Avoid Data Loss Due to Natural Disasters

Building a proactive backup strategy sometimes requires adjustments to fit the needs of your organization and the records you want to protect, but it’s crucial to have a solid disaster plan for recovery and continuity in place to mitigate the risk of data loss, corruption, or access issues.

1. Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP): Develop a robust Disaster and Recovery Plan that includes steps for data recovery and continuity of operations. Regularly test and update it to account for evolving disaster risks and business needs.
2. Routine Data Backup: Regularly backing up your data is critical in preparing for any incidents that might lead to power failures or structural damage. The best practice of the 3-2-1 backup rule increases the layers of protection and multiplies the number of locations where your digital records are stored. The 3-2-1 rule advises:
   – 3: Maintain at least three copies of your data.
   – 2: Store two of these backups on different types of media.
   – 1: Ensure at least one backup is stored offsite or in the cloud.
   This approach ensures that should one backup be compromised by a natural disaster event like fire or flooding, you have additional copies available elsewhere.
3. Remove Single Points of Failure: Routinely backing up data to offsite locations and using cloud-based solutions will protect data from on-site physical damage and allow for rapid data recovery and access from any location. Storing data in multiple locations across different regions helps avoid single points of failure. Redundant data storage across geographically diverse locations ensures resilience against region-specific disasters.
4. Data Encryption and Security: Encrypt data both at rest and in transit to prevent data corruption or unauthorized access during a natural disaster. Strong security measures can protect against ransomware attacks during emergencies.
5. Routine System and Data Integrity Checks: Regularly scan and check systems for vulnerabilities, data corruption, or hardware issues. Conduct system maintenance to reduce the risk of failure when disaster strikes.
6. Staff Training and Awareness: Train employees on data protection protocols, data handling, and recovery processes. Prepared staff can execute data recovery plans more efficiently during and after a natural disaster, reducing downtime and data loss.

Prepare for Natural Disasters with Backup and Recovery Solutions

Natural disasters present significant risks to data security, accessibility, and integrity. For organizations, the loss of data can be financially devastating and may even lead to permanent closure.

By understanding the potential threats posed by natural disasters and utilizing preventive measures, organizations can better prepare for the unpredictable, whether it’s software corruption, human errors, power and hardware failures, or weather incidents. Implementing a comprehensive disaster recovery plan with reliable data backups and redundancies can ensure resilience in the face of nature’s unpredictability.

It’s not if a disaster will strike, it’s when. And when it does, recovery begins quickly with VaultTek’s vault-tight data protection solution. Founded on the principles of the 3-2-1 backup rule, we provide a triple-redundant backup system with three layers of defense: one on-site backup utilizing our Tekmate, a purpose-built backup appliance configured for your location, and two additional off-site backups saved at separate and uniquely geographic U.S.-based data centers.

Plus, our proven data protection services are backed up with accessible personalized service that empowers you with confidence that your data is secure and ready when you need it. Our dedicated experts are proactive and dependable, offering clear answers and help when you need it most.