Cybercrime has become a major concern in recent years. Hackers have increasingly targeted any organization that might house data files which can be leveraged for financial gain. Although entities as large as federal databases and corporate banks have been victims of harmful data breaches, small businesses and individuals remain as the favorite targets for cybercriminals. The latest threat report released by cybersecurity firm Symantec found that small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) accounted for 31 percent of all targeted attacks, according to Network World.

Many small business owners might believe that because the information they possess is of significantly less value than that of a larger enterprise, hackers would not waste their time and resources probing their networks. However, it is precisely SMBs’ lack of sophistication that continues to make them potential targets for breaches. Smaller businesses tend to implement fewer cybersecurity defenses in their networked environments, meaning hackers will have much fewer barriers to overcome to gain access to their data. Although the payout from these breaches are considerably less, the risk entailed is lower as well.

Another concern is that cybercriminals are deploying greater numbers of effective viruses and other malware. Many of these threats have stealth capabilities so users may not even realize that their files have been compromised for months or even years after a breach has occurred. Furthermore, new malware strains are appearing at such a high rate of frequency that many anti-virus programs simply cannot update their threat detection lists fast enough to contend with recently released dangers. A recent Panda Labs study found that 74,000 unique forms of malware appear on the Internet each day, according to SPAMfighter.

The threat of file corruption
Once a virus gains access to a system, it can quickly propagate itself, spreading across the environment and infecting numerous files. In addition to the massive performance drop that may occur, users might notice that their file data has become corrupted by virulent malware strains. If this happens, the files in question will be unusable, and whatever contents they may have held – financial records, family photos, home videos or work orders, for example – will be lost forever. That is, unless the victimized SMB or individual has backed up those files with a data archiving solution.

Since there is just no way to predict when a malware attack will occur, businesses and consumers alike need to have their sensitive, irreplaceable and mission-critical files backed up in the event that the originals become corrupted. A traditional hard disk drive device is not ideal in these circumstances because if it shares a connection with the infected workstation, it too is vulnerable to attack. However, disc-based data archiving solutions would be immune to any virus infections, meaning users can rest easy that their important documents are secure.