Are You Forgetting To Backup? The Backup Checklist

I woke up this morning to something a bit alarming. My other blog, Entrepreneur’s Journey was replaced with a completely different site. My blog had been hacked!

My websites have been hacked before and usually when it happens they replace the index page with a rude comment or something similar. This time my domain name appeared to be pointing to a completely different site.

I went in with and checked my files and it appeared as if nothing had changed so I was puzzled how the hackers had manipulated my site. Then it dawned on me, I probably had left my .htaccess file open and they had placed some code in it to redirect my domain to another website. I quickly tested my theory and I was right. I replaced the file, made sure it was locked this time so it couldn’t happen again and everything was back to how it should be.

How Often Do You backup?

When something like this happens I immediately think about worse case scenarios which usually means restoring my site from whatever backups I have available. I’m fairly regular with my backing up habits and I have duplicate copies of everything vital. I tend to back up my files once every week or two so it could still mean loosing a week or more worth of content if something forced me to restore from backups. Not a bad situation but not great either.

Of course the more often you backup the better but for me it’s quite a time consuming activity to back up everything I do.

The backup Checklist

When first creating a backup procedure I imagine a few different scenarios. I run Internet businesses so consequently I think in technology terms when I do this, but for your business you can include other things as well, like shop fittings, stock, tax records, equipment – any assets or intellectual property that is vital to the day-to-day operations of your business.

In my case I think about files on computers and in particular websites. I consider two scenarios –

1. My online content is lost (website erased)
2. My offline content is lost (computer crash)

If you think through an average week in your business life you can map out all the resources you use and which you should have backup procedures for. Add to this your yearly activities like tax records and you should be able to come up with a comprehensive list of your vital resources.

In my case I backup the following files:

• My personal files and folders on my computer
• Every single website I manage – I have a folder with all the content for each website
• All the live website databases (mySQL) for my blogs, forums, and software scripts
• My email in-boxes – both personal and business (I backup full profiles, not just individual emails so you can restore or transfer things a lot easier)
• My AWeber email mailing lists – VITAL! Don’t lose your mailing lists
• All the active files that I’m currently working with on my desktop that haven’t been filed away in folders yet.
• My address books, browser favorites, cookies and RSS subscriptions
• Installation executable files for any really important software I don’t have on disk or can’t download from the web.
• All my tax record keeping files
• Client records – all the files telling me about clients I need to bill etc

That covers most of my vital files. I back these up on to a portable MP3 player hard drive and also my laptop. It would take a lot of things going wrong at once for me to loose anything permanently. You should be certain you can say the same about your small business.

Automatic Update Procedures

A lot of people that work in the IT field have automatic backup procedures that each day will transfer the content of folders to offsite backups or similar. This is a great time saving facility. My advice to people that have access to this is to be certain everything that is important is backed up. It’s helpful to be efficient at backing up but it’s more important to be comprehensive.

Yaro Starak
Back-er-Upper-er