Data corruption, or modifying data in a malicious way to prevent use in desired purposes, is a serious problem in the IT industry. Businesses need to be ready with a plan to handle data corruption. A prepared IT Vendor includes a data corruption plan in a well documented disaster recovery plan that handles catastrophic measures.

Causes of Data Corruption

• Wrong system shutdown
• System crashes or halts during its active state
• Unexpected power failure
• Hard drive failures or another hardware related issue
• Failure to remove hard drives and storage devices properly, often without turning them off right before removal
• Virus infections from the internet or external devices
• Data altercation during transmission over a network

Strategies to Avoid Data Corruption

• All users should disconnect and remove external devices properly and follow the proper steps to shut down a computer
• Consider using an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), a system that provides backup power at the time of a main electrical source failure to prevent the loss of unsaved data
• While surfing the Internet, be careful of malicious websites and downloading corrupt software which can introduce viruses to your system

Strategies to Handle Data Corruption

A backup and recovery strategy is the best way to protect your data from events that cause data corruption. Once lost or corrupted, data can only be retrieved from a back-up storage. The most reliable IT support frequently backs up critical data so that it always remains readily available. If data is corrupted over a network, then automatic re-transmission of data will also prove fruitful.

A well-defined and well documented plan for handling data corruption will be helpful, so that employees and management will know the protocols in an event of data corruption.