Understanding Data and Software Corruption: A Major Threat to Data Loss

By VaultTek | July 18, 2024

Data is the lifeblood of organizations, driving decision-making, operations, and customer engagement. Today data is constantly under a multitude of threats. And while threats like ransomware, malware, hardware failures, and human error receive more media attention, one of the six most common threats to data security and business continuity is data and software corruption. These threats create significant vulnerabilities to the integrity and accessibility of stored data, leading to potentially catastrophic losses. From permission issues to operational failures, the risks posed by data and software corruption are ever-present.

Types of Data and Software Corruption Leading to Data Loss

Data and software corruption can prevent access to programs and render data unusable, especially if critical information is not backed up in multiple places for recovery. Without backups, any corruption can cause disruptions and downtime, data loss, and an increase in recovery time and costs. The most common types of data and software corruption are:

  1. File System Corruption: A corrupted file system can render data inaccessible, often requiring complex recovery efforts. This corruption can occur due to improper system shutdowns, hardware failures, or software bugs.
  2. Database Corruption: Databases are critical for storing structured data. Corruption can occur due to software bugs, power failures, or hardware malfunctions, leading to significant data loss and operational downtime.
  3. Application Data Corruption: Software applications can experience data corruption due to bugs, incompatibilities, or crashes, resulting in the loss of critical user data.
  4. Operating System Corruption: An operating system (OS) corruption can render a computer or server unusable. Causes include malware, failed updates, or hardware issues, leading to widespread data accessibility problems.
  5. Metadata Corruption: Metadata corruption can disrupt data access and retrieval, often affecting file attributes, permissions, and indexing information.
  6. Configuration File Corruption: Configuration files control how software and systems operate. Corruption in these files can lead to misconfigurations, system crashes, or security vulnerabilities.
  7. Backup File Corruption: Corruption in backup files undermines the reliability of data recovery processes, potentially leading to irreversible data loss.
  8. Email Data Corruption: Email systems store vast amounts of communication data. Corruption here can disrupt business communications and result in the loss of important information.

Statistics on the Impact of Data and Software Corruption

  • According to Symantec, over 50% of data recovery attempts fail due to the severity of data corruption.
  • Gartner estimates that 20% of mission-critical applications experience data corruption annually, affecting business continuity.
  • Kroll Ontrack reported that 40% of data loss is due to hardware or system malfunction, which often involves some form of data corruption.
  • The Ponemon Institute reports that hardware failures, human errors, and software corruption contribute to more than 75% of data loss incidents.
  • A report by Veeam found that 82% of businesses experienced at least one unplanned outage in the last 12 months, with data corruption being a leading cause.

Recent News Story: Child support payment system crashed because of corrupt data and bad backups

 South Africa’s Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DOJ&CD) MojaPay system, a centralized financial management that processes child maintenance payments for hundreds of thousands of families, suffered a major outage shortly after its launch. The system’s downtime lasted for more than two months impacting thousands of families and children who rely on timely disbursement.

The resulting investigation into the root cause found that data corruption resulting from human error, led to a crash of the system’s production server. Making matters worse for the department and the thousands of beneficiaries left out of pocket, the system took longer to restore than initially expected because of bad data backups. The original crisis plan could not follow the prescribed disaster recovery timeline, due to incomplete backups and system errors on backups, which led to delays in getting the system functional. The crisis also forced the department to deploy an alternative email system to coordinate their response, increasing an already large cost of recovery.

Preventative Measures to Avoid Data Loss Due to Data or Software Corruption

Preventing data loss due to data or software corruption requires a multifaceted approach involving several proactive measures.

  1. Data Validation: Data validation is the process of ensuring that data is accurate, complete, and meets the necessary quality standards before it is processed, stored, or transmitted. This can involve a variety of checks, such as:
    1. Format Validation: Ensuring data adheres to a specified format (e.g., email
      addresses, dates).
    2. Range Checking: Verifying that numerical values fall within a defined range.
    3. Consistency Checking: Ensuring that related data fields have consistent values (e.g., start date should be before end date).
    4. Uniqueness Checking: Ensuring that a value is unique within a dataset (e.g., no duplicate user IDs).
  2. Checksums: A checksum is a value calculated from a data set that can be used to detect errors or changes to the data. The checksum is calculated using an algorithm (such as MD5, SHA-1, or CRC) and stored or transmitted along with the data. When the data is retrieved or received, the checksum is recalculated and compared to the original. If the checksums match, the data is considered intact; if they differ, the data has likely been altered or corrupted.
    • Example Use Cases
    1. File Transfers: When files are transferred over a network, checksums ensure the files arrive intact without any corruption.
    2. Database Transactions: During database transactions, checksums can validate that the data written to disk matches the data intended to be written.
    3. Backup Integrity: Regular checksums on backup files ensure that the backups are not corrupted and can be reliably used for data recovery.
  3. Deploy Redundant and Failover Systems: Redundant systems involve having duplicate hardware, software, and data storage solutions that can immediately take over if the primary systems fail. Failover mechanisms are automated processes that detect system failures and switch operations to a standby system with minimal human intervention.
  4. Regular Software Updates: Keep all software, including the operating system, up to date to mitigate vulnerabilities and bugs that can lead to corruption.
  5. Use of Reliable Hardware: Invest in high-quality, reliable hardware with error-checking capabilities to minimize the risk of hardware-induced corruption.
  6. Comprehensive Security Measures: Implement robust security measures, including antivirus, anti-malware, and firewalls, to protect against malicious attacks that can cause data corruption.
  7. Regular System Audits and Monitoring: Conduct regular system audits and continuous monitoring to detect and address issues before they escalate.
  8. Employee Training: Educate employees on best practices for data handling, system shutdowns, and recognizing alerts and potential threats that can lead to corruption.
  9. Data Backup and Disaster Recovery Planning: Embrace a comprehensive backup strategy, coupled with robust disaster recovery plans to minimize downtime and data loss in the event of a data corruption incident.
    The best practice 3-2-1 backup method of data protection multiplies the number of backups you keep and expands the number of locations where your digital record backups are stored. The rule states that you should have:

    • 3 – At least three copies of your data
    • 2 – Two of the backups should be stored on different types of media
    • 1 – And at least one backup should be stored offsite or in the cloud

    When it comes to data storage there is an oft-quoted adage that “Any data not stored in at least three distinct locations ought to be considered temporary.”  Though the origin of the sentiment isn’t known, the spirit of it is the same premise as the 3-2-1 backup rule’s objective to have redundant backups in multiple places. If one of the backups fails or is compromised, your chances of recovery are greater with the 3-2-1 method.

  10. Use of Reliable Data Protection Services: Corrupt files can go undetected on a system for any length of time until discovered either randomly or when the file is needed. Through VaultTek’s managed service, some corrupt files are exposed during the backup process, allowing our team to proactively report to the client any unusual findings that become evident while monitoring.

Backup and Recovery Solutions for When Data and Software Corruption Occurs

Maintaining strong backup and recovery solutions is essential in protecting valuable data should corruption occur. Regularly replicating your data to offsite locations ensures that you won’t lose everything in case of any common data threat.

This means choosing the right backup solution for you and testing it regularly to ensure quick data restoration. It’s also crucial to have a solid plan in place for disaster recovery. Building a proactive backup strategy sometimes requires adjustments to fit the needs of your organization and the records you want to protect. Strategic suggestions for a successful 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 network.
  • 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

It’s not if a disaster may strike, it’s when. The consequences of data and software corruption can be just as dire as cyber threats, power failure, natural threats, hardware malfunctions, improper storage, human error, and more. Things you didn’t even know could happen, occur every day.

By investing in a resilient data protection solution, adopting best practices, and remaining vigilant, businesses can recover from data and software corruption with confidence, ensuring the safety and integrity of their most valuable asset—data.

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 corruption 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 combined with our personalized and accessible support empower you with confidence that your data is secure and ready when you need it.