Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Your G Suite Environment Is Not Safe from Human Error Data Loss

By Native News Online Staff - December 11, 2019 at 12:00AM

Published December 11, 2019

There are many scenarios and situations that lead to data being deleted.  When thinking about threats to data, it is often easy to assume data is only at risk from outside sources.  However, for organizations today hosting their business-critical data either on-premises or in a public cloud environment, human error is one of the primary reasons for having a robust data protection solution in place.  In fact, one of the most common reasons driving the need for data restoration is the accidental deletion of data by an employee.  It happens and there are many scenarios that lead up to data being deleted either accidentally or intentionally.

Focusing further on Google’s G Suite public cloud environment, data can potentially be deleted just as easily in the public cloud environment as it can be on-premises.  While Google has a few built-in mechanisms to help with human error disasters, we will take a look at why organizations will want to have a solution in place to protect G Suite environments from human error data loss.

Human Error Poses a Tremendous Threat to Data

Human error can encompass a wide range of actions that lead to data getting deleted.  Both accidental and intentional data deletion can happen without a user being aware.  How can this be?  A user can intentionally delete data but unintentionally delete data from the wrong file.  Or, instead of performing a “Save As” operation, a “Save” operation may be chosen instead.  As you can expect, both of these actions can potentially result in the deletion of business-critical data.

Unintentional data loss can happen just as easily and really falls into the same types of scenarios mentioned earlier.  A user may unintentionally select the wrong file and choose to delete it.  Unintentional or intentional user actions can both have disastrous consequences.  They can lead to business-critical operations being brought to a halt and cause DR plans to be enacted.

Whether on-premises or in public cloud environments, human error poses an extremely dangerous threat to business continuity.  Organizations must have a disaster recovery solution that can account for any scenario where data might be lost or accidentally deleted due to human error.

Public cloud environments such as Google G Suite are extremely popular today for organizations looking to house data in the powerful and very capable Software-as-a-Service offerings from Google and others.  However, when it comes to data protection, the native capabilities built into the solution for businesses looking to protect their data is limited.  Let’s take a look at the built-in functions with G Suite storage for recovering data that has been deleted due to human error and see what functionality is available to recover from these types of events.

Google G Suite Native Data Recovery Functionality

To be perfectly clear, Google G Suite has no functionality that is billed or listed in official documentation as a true native backup solution. While the features of the G Suite SaaS offerings have certainly gotten better, there is still no true versioned enterprise backup solution built into the functionality of G Suite. There are, however, a few features that we will call “lightweight” data protection that has a limited ability to retrieve your data in case a human error disaster happens and data is deleted.  Let’s take a look at the features that can be used for limited data retrieval. These include:

  • File Versions
  • File Permissions
  • Restore from Trash

File Versions

With Google G Suite File versions, G Suite users can right-click a file and select Manage versions which allows downloading a different version of the file.  This would certainly help to protect in situations where users accidentally “Saved” a document instead of performing a “Save As” function.  The previous version of the file will be before changes were committed and data loss occurred inside the file.

Manage versions can restore a different version of files contained in G Suite storage

File Permissions

When thinking about human error including accidental, unintentional, or intentional actions that lead to data loss, the scope of data loss in the G Suite Team Drive affects every member belonging to the team.  So, one user human error affecting data affects that data for all users with access to the Team Drive.

Properly controlling who has the Full Access permission will limit users who have the ability to outright delete files from Team Drive.  A simple bump of permissions down to the Edit Access level will allow modifying the contents of the file but not moving or deleting it.

Restore from Trash

With the Restore from Trash functionality, items that have been deleted from G Suite Team Drives can be restored by users who have Edit or Full Access permissions.  The items that are deleted by Team Drive users with Full access are stored in the trash for roughly 25 days.  After the 25 days in the trash, the item will be auto-purged from the trash.

G Suite administrators have the ability to restore items from Team Drives or even deleted Team Drives using the G Suite admin console.  Once again, the limitation of 25 days applies to the G Suite administrator as well.  Once the data has been auto-purged from the Trash, the data is gone forever if relying on this native built-in functionality found in G Suite.

Restoring an item from the Trash bin in Google public cloud storage

More Data Protection in the Cloud Needed

Today’s “always-on” web-driven businesses need more protection for business-critical data than the simplistic capabilities afforded to them by the default capabilities of G Suite Team drives.  Businesses need a data protection solution that allows them to create custom RPO and RTOs based on their individual business needs.

What if a human error that resulted in critical data loss was not discovered until after the 25-day window of time was available for the restore processes in G Suite?

Spinbackup provides the answer for businesses looking for a powerful, robust solution filled with features to protect business-critical data in SaaS environments such as G Suite.  Data loss threats such as human error do not stand a chance against the rock-solid Spinbackup functionality provided to businesses.

The post Your G Suite Environment Is Not Safe from Human Error Data Loss appeared first on Native News Online.



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