Archive for February, 2012

Security Issues with Cloud Computing

Monday, February 27th, 2012

Cloud computing and security?

Cloud computing is a hot topic these days. According to some folks, everyone needs to move their personal and business computing to the cloud. Apps hosted online run the gamut from email to office productivity. Computers are being developed that work almost entirely online. For example, the Google Chromebooks connect to the Internet the moment they boot up. Email, documents, spreadsheets and presentations are generated and stored immediately online. If you lose or damage your Chromebook, you simply get another one and keep on computing.

It sounds great, right? But I want you to look at it from another perspective before you get too excited. Here at The Data Rescue Center, we perform emergency data recovery for people and businesses that have failed hard drives or missing data from accidental deletion and other data disasters. They bring in their hard drive. We assess the damage, provide a quote and recover the data. Did you see the first item? They bring in their hard drive.

If you lose your data online, you can’t bring in the hard drive. If the online service has hard drive failures, you can’t bring in the hard drive. If hackers break into the online servers and erase your data, you can’t bring in the hard drive. If your files are lost, damaged or stolen from a cloud server, we can’t help you. Nor can any other data recovery company. A data recovery service requires a physical hard drive.

Please understand that I’m not saying that all online services are unreliable. Many are conscientious and will take good care of your files. However, if something does happen to your data, you must deal with them, on their schedule, along with the hundreds or thousands of other users of the service as well. If your files are mission critical, if they are necessary to keep your business in operation, then you should consider the possible consequences and make sure you have both a local copy of your files as well as a backup somewhere.

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Be weary of the $199.00 Hard Drive Recovery

Friday, February 24th, 2012

Be weary of lost cost data recovery specials

I have seen an increasing amount of ads and specials for budget sub-$200 data recovery services. In one case ,I handed a Data Rescue Center business card to a neighboring technical establishment that I was visiting and was shocked by their perception of Data Recovery costs. Basically, the feedback was surprising and paralleled the ads on Google I continually see when searching for “Physical Data Recovery services”. The repetitious feedback, is that data recovery scenarios cost around “$199.00”. $199.00 dollars may be more accurate if your data loss is due to deleted files, formatted drive or an unmountable volume or partition. These types are called logical recoveries.
However, if you have a failing hard drive, do not expect to pay $199.00. These types of data recovery scenarios are what is referred to as physical recoveries. A cleanroom is needed to be able to take these drives apart in a dust free environment by trained professionals. If your data is extremely important and irreplaceable, do not trust a flat rate of $199.00. These types of pricing schemes are designed to get you in the door mainly. Physical data recovery pricing is definitely not low-cost, but the process starts by bringing your drive to a legitimate, professional company like The Data Rescue Center.
If you find yourself with a data loss situation, immediately quit all programs you are using and turn off the computer. Further writing to the hard drive may overwrite data you are trying to recover. This includes creating new documents, browsing the Internet, or running disk repair utilities to attempt to fix the drive.
If you need advice, call the Data Rescue Center @ 1-877-501-4949 or visit the website for more information. http://www.thedatarescuecenter.com/

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BYOD to Work

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012

Bring Your Own Device to Work?

BYOD is an acronym that stands for Bring Your Own Device. Many workplaces allow employees to bring their own data devices to work and connect to the company’s network. Allegedly, this increases productivity and keeps equipment costs down as well. Unfortunately, unless certain precautions and security measures are employed, BYOD could just as well stand for Bring Your Own Destruction.

Here at The Data Rescue Center, a data recovery lab in Livermore, California, we see damage that is caused by lax BYOD policies. There are several dangers in allowing employees to use their personal devices for work. For example, not every computer user employs adequate antivirus and malware protection. I’ve often worked with folks who didn’t realize that the AV software that came on their new laptop was only a trial version that had to be renewed after three to six months.

Back in the day, computer viruses were often transmitted from machine to machine via a floppy disk. While the floppies are gone, the risk is still prevalent. The old floppy has been replaced by the USB key or flash drive. Their capacity makes it very easy for a complex virus or keylogger program to hide in email attachments saved to the drive.

Smartphones, tablet PCs and media devices are not immune from infection. Allowing a device to connect to a business network without proper security measures is asking for trouble. If a computer or server is infected, HDD data recovery might be necessary to retrieve lost or inaccessible files. This could disrupt business operations, even to the point of financial loss. Add to that the data recovery prices that will need to be paid. You may find that allowing these devices on your system may not worth the perceived benefits.

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Top Trends in Security Threats

Wednesday, February 15th, 2012

Data Breach

A recent post on the Experian Data Breach Resolution blog identified five of the top trends in security breach threats. They listed five classes of threats that appear to be the most troublesome:

· Targeted attacks are attacks that usually focus on gaining access to sensitive information from a particular company. These are often perpetrated by sending email links and attachments that appear to be from legitimate sources.
· Information compromise of social networks and social engineering sites is accomplished by posing as friends, thereby gaining access to personal information.
· Zero-day rootkits and vulnerabilities are often called hide-and-seek attacks. Hackers insert their malware into a company’s system, attempting to hide them from detection until a security vulnerability is discovered.
· The sophistication of mobile device operating systems make mobile threats a growing concern. Trojans and other malware are often secreted in seemingly legitimate phone apps, waiting to glean sensitive information.
· Probably the most insidious threat, in my opinion, is the availability of kits that allow the creation of malware without any expertise. In 2011 alone, the creation of over 268 million variants was made possible through DIY malware kits. This statistic comes from Symantec, a leader in security technology.

I believe that these malware kits present a particular danger to computer users’ data. An expert hacker will normally try to not leave any trace of infiltration, leaving the door open to future attacks. However, a would-be attacker, with little or no expertise, might create an attack weapon that trashes the drive on the victim’s computer, damaging valuable data files.

Our recovery engineers at The Data Rescue Center are expertly trained in HDD data recovery. If your data has become inaccessible, our data recovery lab is fully equipped to handle any type of damage that has occurred. Call us today to see what options are available and to check our data recovery prices. Becoming informed before disaster strikes will keep panic to a minimum and ensure expedient recovery.

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The Data Rescue Center, a company you can trust

Monday, February 13th, 2012

State-of-the-art Facility

Storage devices like hard drives, external drives, SSD drives and other flash media have become an integral part of our daily routines and lives. We rely on these drives to store our computer data for our family and work without hesitation. What happens when one of these devices fail and professional services are needed ? You can use applications like Data Rescue 3 an award-winning recovery software that does a great job for logical and minor physical issues with hard drives. However, when your hard drive completely fails and is not recognized by your Mac or PC, who will you trust your data with?

Hitachi, a world leader in storage technology, has named The Data Rescue Center as one of only two data recovery companies listed on their website for physical recoveries. Hitachi provides a wide range of products that includes advanced hard disk drives, enterprise-class solid state drives and innovative external storage solutions and services that store, preserve and manage the world’s most valued data.

When one of the top 3 hard drive manufactures (Hitiachi) trusts The Data Rescue Center, it speaks volumes about our personnel expertise and what our facility has to offer. If your hard drive fails and are in the need of a quality data recovery service with industry accredited facility and professionals, contact us for a quote today. We have a technical and friendly staff that will walk you through the process from start to finish. You can read about what our customers are saying about us and get an idea how we deliver everyday of the week.

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Make Sure You Can Trust Who Has Your Data

Monday, February 6th, 2012

Megaupload and Megavideo shut down by the Feds

Cloud computing services, such as online file sharing, file storage and backup, have become very popular over the last few years. These online services give the home computer user the ability to quickly and easily share personal photos and home videos. The business computer user also benefits from the ability to access their files from any computer in the world, enhancing business mobility.

Even so, recent events should warn us all that we need to be careful with whom we trust our data. The FBI seized and shutdown the servers used by Megaupload and Megavideo, two related online file storage and sharing sites. They were allegedly allowing users to upload illegal, copyrighted files. As a result, many innocent site users lost access to their important files. Furthermore, it appeared as if their files were going to be deleted before they could be retrieved. Fortunately, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit legal service, is working to ensure these files can be reclaimed.

Caution should also be exercised when choosing a data recovery company. Emergency data recovery is a complex, exacting process and you need to trust the company that you are contracting for recovery. The Data Rescue Center is a data recovery service in Livermore, California, and we would invite you to check our credentials. We are a BBB accredited business and we take the protection of your data seriously.

We do all recovery in-house, have 24-hour surveillance cameras and protect your equipment in a UL listed Class 2 vault when it is not being repaired. Additionally, the computers used to recover your data are never Internet connected, ensuring that your files are safe from hacker attacks and viruses.

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