Japanese city loses USB with info about all its residents. Here’s how we can help!

Earlier this month, the city of Amagasaki located in Western Japan, announced that it had lost a USB flash drive that contains the personal information of all its roughly 460,000 residents.

The USB in question contained data including the residents’ names, addresses and dates of birth, and even bank account information. That’s a big whoops.

In case you’re wondering how exactly a city in the world’s third largest economy could possibly contain a thumb drive with data on all its residents — and then proceed to lose said thumb drive — the answer is short: their IT professionals don’t have Atera and its useful integrations!

We all make mistakes, it happens!

Amagasaki officials, if you’re reading this, here’s how Atera can help you mitigate this potential data leak for next time.

Utilize a Managed Service Provider with robust cybersecurity experience

An MSP is a type of IT professional whose businesses outsource certain services to specialist companies. Outsourcing has long been understood as a cost-cutting move.

A good MSP will probably tell you the first rule of thumb (or rule of thumb drive — pun intended) will be to not store private or confidential information, like your residents’ bank account info, somewhere that will be easy to steal or hack into.

So far, there is no evidence of data being leaked so far, but for next time, it’s probably better to let an IT professional handle keeping sensitive data stored.

Need a good MSP? We know some good ones 😉

Continually backup important information

Based on the report by Japan Times, it’s unclear where else the information on the USB drive could have been stored or backed up. But in general, it’s a good idea to backup important information and data somewhere that is secure and accessible even in case of emergencies.

Protect assets with cutting-edge cloud storage solutions

As we’ve mentioned, it is absolutely critical for sensitive data and information to be protected from potential data breaches or theft of physical devices, like a USB drive.

As such, we’ve partnered with Acronis, our award winning backup solution.

With Atera’s Acronis integration, you can get Secure File Sharing, 24/7 Access, Data Loss Protection, Data Recovery, Easy Collaboration, and a whole lot more to keep you and your clients at ease.

Harden your security with Axcient’s chain-free backup

Whether you need to protect against accidental or intentional; and malicious backup deletion, we have the integrations to keep you protected.

Atera’s Axcient integration gives you an all-in-one platform for your entire business’ backup and recovery needs!

Our integrations will ensure your files are protected from data loss and ransomware, so you can keep them stored in the cloud and not on a physical thumb drive.

Ensure you have an emergency preparedness and prevention plan in place

It’s always better safe than sorry.

Your first thought when it comes to emergency preparedness may be to think of first responders like the Police or Fire Department, but IT professionals also have a big role when it comes to emergency preparedness and prevention.

No matter what the situation is, you should ensure to have an IT disaster recovery plan in place.

If the lost USB drive in question gets put into the wrong hands, this could be very bad for the nearly half a million citizens whose personal data is stored on it. Are you prepared for a data breach? Are you prepared to pay the ransom for the data not to be leaked?

Now is always the time to prepare in case of emergency — no matter what type of emergency you fear.

How we ensure privacy and security in the Atera Cloud

Here at Atera, security and confidentiality is our absolute priority, and we understand that the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of our users’ information is vital to their business operations.

As such, we have implemented many different features and processes to ensure that your data is always secure with Atera.

From the Atera Remote Control tool — a virtual tunnel created between the Atera user and the target computer where all the data transferred is encrypted — to mandated 2 factor authentication and everything in between, rest assured Atera is safe, reliable, and protected.

Read all about how we ensure top-notch privacy and security in the Atera Cloud!