E-Waste Security has shredded over 100,000 LTO backup tapes for clients in the last few years. Every time we work on a tape shredding project we think that this must be the last time – nobody uses tape for backup storage any more. We were so convinced that digital tape was dead that we almost scraped our tape shredding machine. Lucky for us, we didn’t.
Due to the latest data breaches at Experian and the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), companies are once again going to backup tapes for both active and cold storage. “Companies of all sizes must be able to restore data quickly if needed,” says Rob Pritchard, founder of Cyber Security Expert. In addition to hard disk drives and cloud storage companies must “also have a robust, slower-time, recovery mechanism should the worst happen.”
With the proliferation of data hacks and the need to keep information offline, LTO (Linear Tape-Open) backup tape spending has soared. Sales of LTO storage has increased by 40% annually since 2004. Companies are taking advantage of the cheap storage medium to securely store digital data offline. Digital media LTO backup tapes offer cheap, secure and reliable storage. Most importantly, hackers cannot gain access to information on tape.
The need for organizations to protect information from hackers goes beyond high-tech security. It turns out that the old LTO backup tape technology is able to keep confidential information secure by keeping offline and inaccessible to hackers. Once information is backed up on tape, the tapes can be stored for over 30 years.
Recently, companies have relied on company owned servers or on cloud services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure or Box because they are convenient and efficient. Marc Langer, founder and president of Recovery Point Systems says, “Tape isn’t inefficient or ineffective, but it can be inconvenient. Good security is almost always inconvenient.”
It turns out the “outdated” LTO tape is not dead. Until then, we will keep out LTO shredding machine.