Should I Back Up My Website?

Backing up may seem like a boring job, but backing up websites can be a lifesaver. Website backups are your safety net. They're the critical piece of security needed when all other means fail.

Why are backups important and what do they do?

Website backups can help you restore your website after a security incident.
It is important that you have your website security tools to protect your website from hackers or to determine if a hacker has gained access to the website. However, these tools will not be sufficient if the hacker has access to your files and can overwrite or delete them.

What has been described above can be called the worst-case scenario. No matter which security tools you use, the risk of being hacked will never be zero. If this happens to your website, even a large website security platform cannot recover broken or missing content without implementing a backup solution.

Once your website files are overwritten or deleted, there is no way to restore them unless you have a backup. In this regard, backups are often a life-saving solution.

Backups are used to restore the last known good state of your system or configuration settings. Every day, backups are made of the website files and your database (default frequency) so that the website owner can restore his website to the state it was in before. However, backups should not be the only security measure.

Although backups restore the content of your website to the most recent backup, any content uploaded in the meantime will be lost. Also, backups cannot be used to fix the original problem or prevent your site from being re-infected.

I recommend that you take a proactive role in securing your site. Protect your site with a Website Application Firewall to prevent hacking.

How can I choose a good backup solution?

Here are the most important requirements to consider when choosing a backup solution:

Location: Off-Site
We often see that customers store backups on the web server in zip files with the text: backup_xxxx.zip

Unfortunately, this is not a good option. Attackers can easily delete these zip files when they enter the environment.

Like everything else on an unprotected web server, backups can be infected with malware.

Off-site backups are a smart solution because they not only protect your stored data against hackers but also against hardware failures.

Automation: So you don't have to remember...
Our daily life is very busy. It can be easy to forget to make a backup or postpone the task because a backup was made a month ago.

However, if you generate a lot of content, I recommend that you create a backup schedule that meets your site's update requirements. This way, you will never run the risk of losing important content from your website. This also helps to reduce the number of backups if you update your website less frequently.

If you're looking for a backup solution, don't forget that automation is a must. Backups that are not automated cannot be 100% guaranteed.