Sooner or later, disasters happen to every computer user. They delete important files, on purpose or accidentally. Or they update a document and save it, overwriting the original version. Download this paper to learn how to protect against accidental file erasure.
Stand Guard Against Accidental File Erasure By Joel Shore
Sooner or later, disasters happen to every computer user. They delete important files, onpurpose or accidentally. Or they update a document and save it, overwriting the originalversion.The common practice of using an existing document, spreadsheet, or presentation asa starting point for a new one often ends in catastrophe when the user forgets to save thechanges under a new file name.
Careers end on such errors. Or worse. With the strict document-retention requirementsimposed by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, corporations that destroy records risk severefines; employees could even wind up in prison.
Defining the problem is simple: files that should not be deleted often are, on individual PCsand file servers. The immediate challenge is recovering them. Dealing with the larger, long-term issue of prevention and retention on a corporate-wide scale is more complex.
Products that attempt to recover deleted files have been around as long as personalcomputers themselves, but have a history of delivering mixed results. Today, Microsoft®Windows® itself offers the recycle bin for just this purpose. The shortcoming is that thesesolutions, by definition, are after-the-fact fixes. None represents a preventative solution. Theycannot resurrect a file that has been overwritten, and they make no attempt to archive themany revisions that a typical document goes through in its lifetime. Stronger measures areneeded. Fortunately, such a solution is available today.
The Unseen ExpenseThe mathematics of accidental file erasure is alarming. A PC user is likely to spend an average In a corporate environment, justof one hour in a frantic effort to recover the file (or files, or an entire directory) before turning two accidental file deletions perto the help desk. Just two occurrences per day - a conservative estimate for a corporate day can cost 520 hours inenvironment - translates to a minimum annual productivity loss of 520 hours, nearly 14 40- annual productivity loss andhour weeks. Office colleagues, in their attempts to help, add to lost productivity and are more $7,800 in IT staff timelikely to hurt, not help, any chance of success.
Once the IT department gets involved, costs add up quickly.With an IT technician earning $30an hour, a single 30-minute venture to locate and restore a file from a backup tape - if it's thereat all - costs $15. While $15 does not seem like much, in a corporate environment, repeatingthat process twice a day costs $7,800 over a full year.) Tied up for 260 hours, the totalquantifiable cost for user and IT is nearly 21 work weeks, the equivalent of five months fromone full-time employee.
Clearly, recovering a deleted file from a local hard drive or perhaps from a prior day's backuptapes is an expensive, time-consuming, productivity-robbing process. That's if it can be doneat all. And should a crucial file be unrecoverable, the cost to the business itself could beincalculable.
But there's more.
The Long Arm of the LawIn the course of a workday, workers create, modify and delete Microsoft Word, Excel and Under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act ofPowerPoint documents.As changes are made,little regard is paid to archiving original versions of 2002, deleting a file could lead tothese documents. Files no longer needed are either deleted or overwritten. serious legal consequences
That's no longer good enough. In response to the multibillion-dollar misdeeds of several majorcorporations, Congress responded, enacting the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. It changed the rulesfor document retention within public corporations and imposes severe penalties for offenders.Sections 802 and 1102 of the Act amend the federal obstruction of justice statute, greatlyincreasing the penalties for the criminal destruction, alteration, and falsification of records incertain circumstances.Under Section 802, anyone who knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up,falsifies, or makes a false entry in a document with intent to impede, obstruct or influence theinvestigation or administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of a federal departmentor agency or any bankruptcy case is subject to a fine and imprisonment for up to 20 years.Similarly, under Section 1102, any... [download for more]
