Common Threat to Data Loss: Weather Incidents

In today’s digital age, data is one of an organization’s most valuable assets, driving decision-making, innovation, and competitive advantage. And while recent events have focused attention on software corruption, human errors, ransomware, and hardware failures, another common, yet often overlooked, threat to data integrity is the increasing number of weather incidents.

Weather-related incidents, such as hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and severe storms, pose significant threats to data loss and data integrity for businesses. These natural disasters can disrupt operations, damage infrastructure, and lead to loss of critical stored information. Preparing for such incidents is vital to minimize potential disruptions and ensure data continuity.

September marks National Preparedness Month, an initiative by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) designed to encourage businesses and individuals to prepare for emergencies and natural disasters. This national campaign emphasizes the importance of taking proactive steps to safeguard data and critical assets. For businesses, Ready.gov/business offers resources and guidance on disaster planning, continuity of operations, and data protection strategies. By taking action now, businesses can better protect their assets and ensure that their data remains secure and accessible, even in the face of unexpected weather-related events.

Types of Weather Incidents That Impact Data Loss

Whether it’s a forecasted hurricane or a freak thunderstorm with microburst intensities that down limbs and flood streets, weather-related disasters can impact data integrity through loss of files as well as hardware failures, disrupting both short- and long-term business continuity. These are a few of the most common weather events and their potential impact on data loss:

1. Thunderstorms: Thunderstorms are common causes of data loss. They bring heavy rain, lightning, and strong winds that can damage power lines and cause electrical surges. These surges can corrupt data stored in servers or even render entire storage systems inoperable.
2. Fallen Trees: High winds and storms often lead to fallen trees, which can damage power lines and communication cables. This can result in power outages and network interruptions, affecting data access and increasing the risk of data corruption.
3. Flooding: Floods can physically damage data centers and servers, leading to significant data loss. Water infiltration can destroy hardware, corrupt data, and disrupt power supplies critical for data storage systems.
4. Building Damage: Weather incidents like hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes can cause severe structural damage to buildings housing critical IT infrastructure. This can lead to both direct and indirect data loss due to equipment damage and prolonged power outages.
5. Internet Outages: Severe weather conditions can disrupt internet services, leading to connectivity issues and loss of access to cloud-based storage. Prolonged outages can result in data synchronization problems, data corruption, or loss of critical updates.
6. Lightning Strikes: Lightning strikes can cause electrical surges that damage or destroy electronic equipment. This can lead to hardware failures and significant data loss, especially if surge protection measures are inadequate.
7. Hurricanes and Tornadoes: These extreme weather events can devastate entire regions, destroying buildings, servers, and data centers. Hurricanes and tornadoes also cause widespread power outages, which can interrupt data processing and storage activities, increasing the likelihood of data loss.
8. Snowstorms and Ice Storms: Snow and ice storms can lead to power outages, network failures, and equipment damage due to freezing conditions. These incidents can disrupt data access and storage, especially in regions unprepared for extreme winter weather.

Statistics on Weather-Induced Data Loss

The consequences of weather-induced data loss include lost productivity, data exposure, unbudgeted costs, and even disruption to workflows beyond the affected business. While the impact of weather-induced events is often hard to determine as reporting is often rolled into a broader assessment of loss, some recent statistics show the issues and costs associated with this form of disruption:

1. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 40-60% of small businesses never reopen after a major disaster, many of which are weather-related events that cause significant loss of records making filing for relief and insurance assistance almost impossible.
2. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that in 2022 alone, there were 18 weather and climate disaster events in the U.S., each costing over $1 billion, with many businesses experiencing significant loss of records due to power outages and structural damages.
3. Research by the Uptime Institute highlights that 30% of all data storage center outages are caused by weather-related events, such as flooding, hurricanes, and thunderstorms, which leads to significant data loss nationwide.
4. The Ponemon Institute’s Cost of Data Center Outages study notes that the average cost of an unplanned data center outage is $8,851 per minute, with the majority of outages resulting from weather-related power failures.
5. The National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) documented that over 500 million dollars in damages were reported by businesses due to weather-induced data loss in 2021, across a variety of sectors, including retail, finance, and healthcare.
6. A report by Forrester Research found that one in three businesses surveyed had suffered from data loss at least once due to weather-induced events in the last three years, highlighting the growing threat of climate change on data security.

Recent News on the Value of Preparation for Weather Incidents

Weather-related impacts on infrastructure are on the rise, with hurricanes playing a particularly devastating role in compounding these effects. As climate changes lead to more frequent and intense storms, infrastructure such as power grids, communication networks, and data centers are increasingly vulnerable to damage from high winds, flooding, and storm surges. Hurricanes, with their ability to cause widespread destruction over large areas, often exacerbate existing vulnerabilities, leading to prolonged power outages, physical damage to data storage facilities, and disruptions to vital communication channels.

In July 2024, Hurricane Beryl made landfall in southeast Texas. The unexpected intensity exacerbated problems in an already struggling Houston infrastructure and consensus by government officials was that not enough preparations were made prior to the storm. “The reality is the storms are coming with greater frequency and greater intensity, which means preparation, preparation, preparation — ahead of time,” said Sylvester Turner, who served as Houston mayor until this year and as state lawmaker representing the area for nearly three decades before that.

Today, more than ever, we need to be prepared against the growing threat of weather-related impacts that can lead to data loss and more. UTHealth Houston took a proactive approach to their preparedness for Hurricane Beryl resulting in safety, continuity, and resilience for their medical campus. Their preparedness plan deployed teams from facilities, IT, and physicians’ groups to work round the clock throughout Hurricane Beryl and its aftermath to mitigate issues or make repairs to structures and infrastructures, to maintain continuous data access, and to ensure patient care continuity. When organizations proactively strengthen their infrastructure and data protection measures, they can remain resilient in the face of unpredictable weather challenges.

Preventative Measures to Avoid Data Loss Due to Weather Incidents

Weather-related events such as hurricanes, floods, thunderstorms, and even extreme heat can severely impact business operations, particularly when it comes to data security and integrity. Implementing robust backup and recovery solutions is crucial for safeguarding valuable data from such unpredictable events. By proactively preparing for weather-related threats, businesses can minimize downtime, avoid costly data loss, and ensure continuity of operations.

Strategic and tactical suggestions for a successful data protection plan include:

1. Backup Your Data: Regularly backing up your data to an offsite location or cloud storage is critical in preparing for severe weather incidents that might lead to power failures or structural damage. Utilizing the best practice of the 3-2-1 backup method multiplies the layers of protection and expands the 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 diversified approach ensures that even if one backup is compromised by a weather-related event like flooding or fire, you have other copies available elsewhere.
2. Invest in Surge Protection: Thunderstorms and lightning strikes can cause sudden electrical surges that may damage servers and storage devices. Installing high-quality surge protectors is a simple yet effective way to prevent data loss due to these electrical anomalies, which are often exacerbated during severe weather.
3. On-Site Power Protection: Power outages caused by storms, hurricanes, or extreme heat waves can interrupt data access and lead to corruption or loss. Implementing uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) and backup generators can ensure that critical data storage systems remain operational, even during prolonged power outages, minimizing the risk of data loss.
4. Physical Protection: Weather-proofing your physical data storage infrastructure is vital. Secure your servers and storage devices in weather-resistant enclosures or reinforced rooms designed to withstand natural disasters. Additionally, installing water detectors in server rooms can provide early warnings of potential flooding or leaks, giving you time to take action before data is compromised.
5. Cloud-Based Storage Solutions: Utilizing cloud-based storage for critical data offers another layer of protection against weather-induced data loss. Reputable cloud providers maintain multiple redundancies and disaster recovery protocols across geographically diverse locations, ensuring your data remains safe even if one region is affected by a natural disaster.
6. Regular System Maintenance and Testing: Ensure all data protection systems, including backups, surge protectors, and power supplies, undergo routine maintenance and testing. This preparation is vital to confirm that your systems are functioning correctly and ready to respond effectively to any weather-related event that may threaten your data integrity.Adopting these preventative measures to protect data not only safeguards against potential losses but also demonstrates a commitment to continuity and preparedness in the face of increasingly unpredictable weather patterns.

Backup and Recovery Solutions When Weather Events Occur

It’s not if a disaster may strike, it’s when. Maintaining strong backup and recovery solutions is essential in protecting valuable data from weather-induced failures. This means choosing the right backup solution for you and testing it regularly to ensure quick data restoration.

Suggestions for a successful backup plan include:

• Different Devices: If copies are kept on the same system or hardware device and there is damage or worse, both copies are at risk of data loss. For increased digital records protection, keep backup copies on separate devices that are not connected through a shared system.
• Ease of Use: Data backup should be simple, secure, and efficient.
• Offline Copy: One copy of your data backup should be secured offline as a protective measure against ransomware or other malware event.
  Off-site/Geographic Locations: Should a disaster impact your on-site location or region, backups stored within or near the same locality increases the risk of all sets of digital records being compromised. Utilizing diverse geographic locations for off-site backups mitigates locality risks and provides even more layers of protection.
• Proactive Planning: Having a crisis response plan in place empowers you to act decisively and recover quicker.
  Security: Security should be embedded into your backup process, helping to ensure protection from attackers at every stage.
• Speed to Recovery: To increase your data protection further, have an onsite backup system as your first layer of records protection and the quickest data recovery when needed.

Proactive Data Protection Against Common Threats for Faster Recovery

Things you didn’t even know could happen, occur every day. The impact of thunderstorms, flooding, fallen trees, building damage, and internet outages can be devastating, leading to significant data loss and business disruption.

By understanding the risks, staying informed, and implementing robust preventative measures, organizations can minimize their vulnerability to data loss and ensure their critical data remains safe and accessible, regardless of the ever-changing weather.

By utilizing a data protection solution that combines the benefits of secure automated processes, redundant data storage and proactive daily monitoring services, the risk of data loss due to weather events can be significantly reduced.

At VaultTek, our vault-tight data protection solution is 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.

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 a weather disaster strikes, recovery begins quickly with assistance from your dedicated expert to guide you through the recovery process.