Something that seemed to be mentioned in every IT related publication for last year or so is possibility of cyber warfare. This is concept of attacking a country through it's information systems (specifically internet).

Since attacks I've seen number of articles go from a few per week dozens per day. Warnings about security risks seem to be popping up all over place. It is important that these warning be taken seriously - it's time to wake up folks and get your systems locked down.

What could be attacked? Just about every company has an internet connection these days. Many of those companies do not have good security, as is proven by recent Nimda and Code Red outbreaks, as well as numerous penetrations by hackers.

If you are an IT manager you probably need to ask yourself some important questions to be prepared for possibility of attack. In fact, it is your patriotic duty to be sure your systems are safe and secure. To do otherwise not only puts your company in danger, it actually threatens, even in a small way, security of your country.

Does your organization really need to be attached to internet at all? - This is first question to ask yourself. I know it seems like every workstation at every company must be attached to internet, is it really necessary? Does it add to company bottom line? For many companies, answer is yes, for others no.

Is information that you provide to internet community appropriate? - This question has come up on a large number of government and utility sites. Is it really necessary, for example, to include a map of a power plant? I know this might seem useful to, say, schools for educational purposes, but it may also be even more useful to terrorists and other evil-doers.

Is your backup and archive strategy sound? - The most important single task that you perform is backups. Do them regularly and check data occasionally.

Are your password policies good enough? - The weakest link in most security schemes is user and his or her passwords. If your management will allow it, make sure your users have long, complex passwords which they change regularly. Enforce best practices with their passwords.

Do it by hand - One possible method (which will not work if you are using a tape drive) is to simply copy files to your backup media by hand. This does have some advantages:

- It does not cost anything. And after spending money to buy some backup hardware this may be best solution.

- It's very easy. Just drag and drop (assuming you are not using a tape drive).

The disadvantages are numerous:

- You must be present to do backup. However, you could just drag and drop before going to bed.

- Since it requires you to actually perform backup yourself, you may have a greater tendency to allow backups to slip.

- Your system will be very busy while backup is being performed, since it is done "in foreground".

Second Copy - Possibly best all-around product that I've found for simple backup operations is called Second Copy (this is not an affiliate link - this is an honest recommendation and we will not make any money if you purchase product). Second Copy is inexpensive (less than thirty dollars for a one user license) and extremely simple to use.

The program sits in your system tray whenever you are logged in. You create profiles (this is very easy) which specify which files to back up, where you want them to go and when you want backup to occur. The entire process of setting up a profile generally requires a couple of minutes.

What I've done on my own system is create a series of profiles to back up different things.