Tidy '24: Security Week 3 - Backups

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '24:

Back up your data.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, backups would be it.

...pardon my obvious spoof of Mary Schmich's famous "Wear Sunscreen" composition, presented as a commencement speech and then turned into a song (in multiple languages, even!). Whatever you think about sunscreen these days, trust me about backups.

During the previous two weeks, we discussed using a password manager to create strong, unique passwords across all of your accounts. We then discussed using two-factor authentication wherever possible, especially on the most critical accounts like online banking (where you can move money around) and email (which other services use to validate your identity or reset your passwords).

This week, I want to pivot slightly and talk about backups.

Now, backups and security are arguably separate topics. One concerns making sure your data is recoverable in an emergency, and the other concerns making sure your data can't be accessed by unauthorized users. However, they certainly go hand-in-hand, and in a high-level discussion with typical computer users, it makes sense to talk about both at the same time.

While you want to take reasonable precautions against unauthorized access to your data, it's equally important to ensure that you suffer as little damage as possible in various potential disaster scenarios. Backups don't help much if someone manages to hack your Facebook account, for example, but they help tremendously if you get infected by a virus, ransomware, or someone steals your laptop.

Or, equally likely these days, your hard drive crashes.

(A family member had this happen a few weeks ago, and although her backups were a bit out of date, the ones she did have made the difference between losing eight years of data vs. losing just one year.)

So how do we do it?

Backing up your data might seem complicated or beyond your grasp, but it doesn't have to be. The two most popular computing platforms today (macOS and Windows) provide pretty straightforward methods, some of which don't require additional equipment like an external hard drive—though I recommend going the external drive route anyway.

And, if you're using Linux, you likely already have enough knowledge to set up decent backups on your own. 🤓

While there are many official recommendations and "best practices" for maintaining robust backups, remember that you will be far better off with even a single meager backup of your primary user profile folder than you would with no backups. It's great to have comprehensive, redundant copies of everything, but this can come later if you don't feel up to the task yet.

You can find a decent summary of backup concepts and practices, including the famous "3-2-1" rule of thumb and its variants, on the Tidy Bytes website:

• Habits for Backups: Safeguarding Your Digital Life

I encourage you to read this, but here's the really, really short version if you aren't sure where else to start:

1. If you're on Windows, use Windows Backup with an external hard drive, or with OneDrive for an even simpler cloud backup. Instructions for both can be found on Microsoft's website.
   
2. If you're on a Mac, use Time Machine with an external hard drive, or use iCloud for an even simpler cloud backup. Instructions for both can be found on Apple's website.
   
3. Check regularly to ensure (1) your backups are happening as expected and (2) you can recover your data if needed.

While syncing your user (a.k.a. "profile") folder to OneDrive or iCloud is a lot better than nothing, I would only recommend doing that as a temporary first step until you implement a more comprehensive solution.

Ideally, you should have one or more external hard drives that allow an immediate full recovery if your primary device breaks or disappears. Restoring from a cloud backup is possible in some situations—iPhones with iCloud being the most seamless example I know—but even in the best case, it's slower than a local backup restoration would be. Cloud backups still mean someone else is ultimately responsible for keeping your data safe. Whether that's a good or bad thing depends on your preferences and priorities.

More redundant and comprehensive backup systems usually involve a combination of extra hardware (like a Synology NAS device) and backup-specific services like Backblaze. These provide an excellent data safety net, especially when used together.

But remember: even one backup on one device other than your main computer is much better than nothing. If you haven't already, use that as a starting point, then grow later as you can.

Make sure you keep at least one current backup of your important data!

Seriously. You'll be glad you did.

For now, safe computing and happy data-taming!

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