WWWalker's Disaster Recovery
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Disaster Recovery Plan
Every business requires a disaster recovery plan. We can assist you with setting this up and maintaining it to make sure you have your system restored in good time.
We have survived a number of disasters in our computer systems ranging from disc crashes to monitors failing. You need a backup strategy and several copies
scattered all over the place to ensure survival. Redundancy is very important. These days this is called cloud computing where files are stored on the Web and do not require the local PC to be as protected. If the PC crashes, a new PC is bought and the work continued using the system on the Web.
Many sites and small businesses now backup their entire system remotely to enable them to recover from disaster or loss in their main site.
Corrupted Restore
In May 2018, a contact had not tested their restore of Windows XP backup of Kasperksy and restore failed causing BSOD (Windows to crash on boot).
They tried safe mode but that did not work and did not want to do a new installation of Windows losing all their software and data.
Windows registry and c:\windows\system32 files had to be patched or restored or last known configuration used to get system to boot again.
External Disk Drives Not Responding
In January 2017, I bought an HDD all in one docking station on eBay for 2 external hard drives that no longer responded due to interface cards failing. I got drives out of external drive chassises then loaded them one at a time into docking station and read them OK via USB on PC!
This saved 7 years of backups being lost!
NAS
In March 2011, we were going to do remote backup using NETGEAR ReadyNAS but by October 2017 we had done nothing and will cease supporting NETGEAR due to PowerShift Partner site going down indefinitely and NETGEAR staff moving to USA and Australian staff changing.
Cloud
Backup and restore of EC2 instances on Amazon Web Services can be done via snapshots.
In February 2017, Cloudflare had massive data breach to all sites using them as DNS servers (domain cloudflare.com). Domain registry needs to have password reset.
In January 2017, we migrated our Website hosting from Linux hosting to Amazon Web Services EC2 Linux instance. This involved backing up site and mail and using Amazon Web Services S3 to migrate to an EC2 instance. We then used third party DNS to delegate the site.
Instead in June 2012, we did backup and restore to Amazon Web Services S3 storage in the Cloud to move a huge mailbox from one hosting site to another. This is a very quick and easy way of moving large amounts of data for small business applications such as hosting, email or backup files. We did this again in November 2012. In June 2013, 12 month free tier ran out and I am now paying a small amount per gigabyte per month till I backup all data to a local drive on my laptop.
In February-March 2012, Symantec Netbackup and EMC MozyPro cloud-based backup services are being offered which we can setup for small business clients to give them extra flexibility and robustness in these tough economic times. A server can be rebuilt on a physical or virtual server from a backup stored in the cloud.
NAS can be used for remote backup akin to Dropbox.
Mobile Backups
Cloud
In January 2012, we also imported contacts from another phone's SIM to a Nokia MeeGo phone.
We used Nokia Account to backup contacts from Nokia MeeGo to Web and then restore them from Web to Nokia MeeGo when phone was flashed. We also imported the contact CSV file into a private Web database.
We will also import contacts from another phone via Bluetooth.
We downloaded lost apps from Nokia Store.
SMS messages were not backed up so were lost when the Nokia 6230 was lost. Backup at Nokia Care did not work on the old Nokia 6230's SMS messages but on everything else - phone numbers, images, audio files, video files.
Migrate Phone Numbers to New Phone
In June 2014, my N950 died so I had to export phone numbers from account.nokia.com as CSV and convert them to VCF with a Windows tool and import them into a Samsung Android phone. Some of the phone numbers were not imported, just the person's name.
The Nokia N950 froze up and said 'too frequent boots - reflash device' when I tried to boot the phone when the battery was nearly flat and had inadequate power to boot. I ignored the message and powered up using power switch and the device luckily booted. I then backed up images and audio recordings via developer SDK. I plan on writing an FTP tool that will allow users to backup their phone's images, video, audio, phone numbers and SMS to an FTP site of their choosing via USB, SD Card, wifi or 3G. A Linux single user mode needs to be setup so a Nokia support person or developer can boot and rescue important files before reformatting and reinstalling the system. Too much vital information is stored on a smartphone and proper backups need to be setup or the phone will lose vital data if it crashes with a disaster recovery plan.
On Nokia N950, I did Settings / Sync and Backup / Backup and then FTPed the Backup files to the PC or select 'use as mass storage device' when USB is plugged into phone. Go to Accounts / Nokia / Synchronise to backup contacts to account.nokia.com. To enter changed password, go to Store / Download an item.
In March 2012, the Optus SIM card died so I had to get a replacement and restore contacts to SIM from Optus Backup, Nokia Account and Nokia N950 contacts.
Optus SIM Backup Down 2 months
In March 2012, I replaced my Optus SIM card.
Optus SIM Backup was down for 2 months with no end in sight.
I got Optus to email me the last backup as HTML table which I converted to CSV using app. I later imported it into MySQL for safe keeping.
New Optus SIMs do not have SIM Backup plus I would not rely on it but would use Nokia Account if you have a Nokia phone to backup and restore via the Internet over 3G as it is more reliable.
On 24/5/15, Nokia Account was replaced by Microsoft Account.
Windows Backups
In March 2012, I tried several times to use Windows 7 backup tool to backup a laptop but it was so slow and unclear which files were backed up or whether the backup job had failed and where the image was stored.
In the end I did a quick, successful backup using Macrium Reflect which was clearer to select partitions to backup and easier to restore from an image using a network drive.
In June 2015, Macrium Reflect 5.3 64 bit worked OK in Windows 8.1. I had to deactivate license from previous crashed Windows 7 laptop to use it on Windows 8.1 laptop.
MSP
If hosting or remote service is provided by an MSP, customer then only pays a monthly fee for maintenance, backup and security.
Data Breach at PageUp People
In May 2018, PageUp People, a recruiting agency portal, had a data breach by hacker gaining access. Red Cross, UQ, Coles Careers, Telstra, Queensland Rail etc used PageUp for recruitment services.
People who had their identity hacked can gain help from IDcare who handle identity and cybersecurity issues for people.
Those whose account has been hacked need to change their password.
Spam Assassin (Email Filtering)
In January 2016, we configured Spam Assassin and account level filtering to move spam into Trash based on Spam-Score threshold. Before that spam was mixed up in the main email inbox and took hours to delete or remove. It mostly gets it right, otherwise the reader can rescue any misclassified spam and move them back to the inbox.
Facebook Security
In September 2014, I was locked out of my Facebook account and I had to provide ID to get back in when I added as a friend a fake entry for Australian Cane Farmers Association. That fake entry was deleted by Facebook.
In 2012 or so, my login on Facebook was infected by a virus when someone from Orange City Council I was a friend of on Facebook shared a post that made out I was swearing at all in my group when I clicked a link on the post that had reverse meaning to what the link did. I unfriended that person to stop this.
Malware Removal
Meltdown and Spectre CPU speculative execution cache reading bug
In 3 January 2018, Intel CPU had bug that cache in kernel could be read by user so passwords and security keys could be sniffed. Operating systems have been patched including Windows, Linux, MacOSX, Android and iOS. This is a very esoteric bug. Older hardware is not affected. CPU speculated on result of if statements in logic and executed and stored results in cache which someone reading through memory could find via side-channel (internal memory).
Patches brick CPUs.
Antivirus can block fix so check status.