HOW SAFE ARE YOUR DATA? Susan B. Jones, Information Services Do you have a contingency plan for your computer and its data in the event of disaster? Heed the moral of these true tales from our own backyard, the MIT campus: If you don't back up all your computer files, you stand a good chance of losing them! THE STOLEN MICRO A senior MIT executive had his new microcomputer stolen from his office. He lost not only the machine, but all his data as well. No one had backed up the hard disk's contents. He might also have protected his machine with an anti-theft device. The Microcomputer Center carries several such devices, ranging from cable locks to steel enclosures that lock around the computer. However, more often than not, loss is due to non-malevolent forces: hardware failure, human error, natural disasters. THE FLOOD When the pipes burst in the second floor conference room of Building E19, water was everywhere: in the bottoms of filing cabinets, underneath desks, in the corridors. The high water mark in the conference room stood at two feet. Fortunately, the flood did not damage computer equipment and power supplies, but the Personnel Office reported a sudden rise in security consciousness. Staff began backing up more often and storing backups high off the floor. TOO CLOSE TO HOME The editors of this newsletter barely made the deadline for the October issue. It began with one of our hard disks coming down with the nVir virus. Even after the virus had been removed, we had to recreate the issue from scratch three times, because our files kept crashing. The situation was complicated by the fact that we had just installed an upgrade of PageMaker, our layout software, and were sharing files over a server. It was hard to pinpoint the reason for continuing problems. Fortunately, we not only had backups on diskette, but paper printouts as well; unfortunately, the backup diskettes were contaminated. We lost only our newsletter files and the desk accessories and fonts on the infected Macintosh. We had to reinstall all the applications on that Mac and clean versions of PageMaker on three Macs. NOW, A HAPPY TALE Charlene Placido, Assistant to the Vice President for Research, began her new position in August. With her job, she acquired a Mac SE. She worked on it more than a month, but never backed up her work. In late September, Placido attended the monthly Administrative Officers (AO) meeting, at which Jerry Isaacson spoke on computer security. She resolved to Ð- and did Ð- back up her hard disk as soon as she returned to her office. The next Friday her Macintosh died. Placido says that had she not backed up her work after the AO meeting, her weekend would have been ruined. Her weekend was saved, and best of all, when her Mac came back from repairs on Monday, her files on the hard disk were still intact. BACKING UP IS EASY TO DO Backing up is the first, best, and easiest way to protect yourself from a computer failure. Otherwise, it could mean the loss of many hours, weeks, or months of work. IS recommends several backup products, all available in the Microcomputer Center: for diskette backup, "Fastback" for MS-DOS computers and "HFS Backup" for Macintoshes; for magnetic tape backup, "Tecmar" for both Macs and MS-DOS machines. PLANNING FOR DISASTER The events recounted here are true though small scale. But as the flood story suggests, the effects could have been large scale. The flood underlined the importance of the Institute's Continuity Planning program to ensure the survivability of major business functions in the event of a disaster. The program focuses on large administrative applications, such as Payroll, and the computers on which these applications run. The computers include both mainframes, such as MITVMA and MITVMC in Building W91, and mini- and microcomputers in the administrative offices. Today computers are highly integrated into everyday activities of many central administrative offices. No longer is contingency planning the sole responsibility of Information Systems, which runs the administrative mainframes. Instead, such planning is the joint responsibilty of IS and the custodians of data, that is, the central administrators. Functional Area Recovery Management (FARM) teams, composed of central administrators and IS staff, have been setting priorities for applications and making or updating recovery plans for large administrative applications. The payroll system, for instance, is completely backed up regularly and stored off-site. Early in October, the Payroll FARM team successfully ran a simulated recovery on the mainframes in W91. At the end of October, after the monthly payroll checks were produced, the team ran an off-site recovery test and compared the output to the original payroll reports. A NEW POSITION IN IS In mid-October, Larry Dean joined IS to coordinate recovery planning for the computers in W91. This includes computer support for the Institute's administrative arm in the event of a disaster. Is contingency planning different for big systems and small? Yes, but as Dean points out, it all comes down to backing up the data and the application and having someplace away from the disaster to run your backup. Want to find out where you stand with your computer security? Self- assessment checklists are available at the Microcomputer Center (W20- 001) and the IS Training Lab (11-206). If you have questions about computer security, contact Jerry Isaacson at x3-1440, or gii@delphi.mit.edu. (Reprinted from IS Volume 5 number 3, November 1989) .