1. What is the CyberSecure online data backup service?
2. How secure is my data?
3. Can CyberSecure access my files?
4. Why do I need backups?
5. How does CyberSecure online backup protect me?
6. Why not use tape backups?
7. Why not backup to optical media or external disks?
8. How often will my computer or server backup?
9. What is the difference between CyberSecure standard, advanced and enterprise editions?
10. How long does a backup take to backup?
11. Do I need to backup my entire computer or server?
12. Can I use the Internet while the backup is going?
13. Can I use my computer while the backup is going on?
14. Can I access my backed up data from another computer?
15. How will I know if my backup is successful?
16. Can I backup more than once a day?
17. What tasks do I have to do every day to perform a Backup?
18. Can CyberSecure remote Backup reduce my insurance premium?
19. I accidentally overwrote/deleted/made wrong changes to a document. Can I get my original back?
20. How much data can I backup?
21. Is there a charge to restore my data?
22. How long do you retain overwritten or deleted files?
23. I use a laptop and often travel, can I use remote backup?
24. Can I backup more than one computer?
25. Do I need a special connection?
26. What about firewalls?
27. What happens if I have an Internet connection failure during a backup?
28. Can I restore a file or directory to an alternate location to avoid overwriting data?
29. What I can I do if I lose my encryption password?
30. Can I backup remote sites?
31. Can I restrict access to only my IP?
32. Which operating systems and platforms does your offsite data backup service support?
33. What are the requirements for using CyberSecure online backup?
34. How do I restore a Microsoft® SQL server database?
35. Why are file-browse dialogs slow?
36. Cannot mount an Exchange database after an online restore operation
37. After I uninstall the software, I keep getting "Backup Missed" report emails. How do I stop these?

Answers

1. What is the CyberSecure online data backup service?

   The CyberSecure online backup service is a highly secure online data backup and recovery service. Customers ranging from small businesses and individual customers to universities and the medical industry all use the CyberSecure online backup service to store valuable data in a remote offsite location safely and privately. It's secure, easy to use and very affordable.

2. How secure is my data?

   Your files are protected using at least 128-bit encryption before they leave your PC. Your files are then stored in this encrypted state at our secure Australian datacentre.

   Please visit the online backup security security page for more information on remote data backup security.

3. Can CyberSecure access my files?

   Each user gets an individual account and password. This means that each user also gets a unique encryption key. This encryption key ensures that while your data is securely stored offsite at our datacentre, only you have access to your data. In fact, even our most privileged CyberSecure systems administrators do not have the ability to decrypt your offsite data.

4. Why do I need backups?

   Losing important computer files can be devastating and expensive.

   You can imagine how easily it could happen - a power surge damaging your business servers, your hard drive crashing, your laptop stolen, or what happens in a fire or flood to your valuable data?

   You need to backup your important files regularly to protect your business and personal information from such disasters.

5. How does CyberSecure online backup protect me?

   CyberSecure Backup is an alternative to traditional backup methods like tape, disk and optical media. Traditional methods are still widely used but they simply cannot offer the advantages of secure, automatic data backups to an offsite location.

   CyberSecure automatically backs up your data according to your instructions and sends your backups to our secure, purpose built datacentre through a secure encrypted connection over the Internet.

   It's easy to restore data. Simply specify the files you would like to restore, and click the restore button. You have immediate access to your data 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

6. Why not use tape backups?

   Tape has been the traditional backup solution for a long time, but tapes are drives and software are expensive and generally unreliable, the cost of ownership with a tape drive is far too high and involves significant manual intervention to load, check, unload and store the tape safely. Regular maintenance is needed to keep tape drives operating properly.

   Tapes have a limited life span! Your backups will start to fail once a tape loses its magnetic strength. Most sources agree that tapes can deteriorate seriously in as little as 5 to 10 years.

   You can't be 100% guaranteed that data can be retrieved from the backup tape if you need it. Often, people don't realise that backup data is corrupt until they are unable to restore it. Worse, many tape backups are not encrypted or password protected. If your backup tape falls into the wrong hands, someone will have easy access to ALL your data.

   Optical media and external hard drive backups can be a viable solution, but since they rely on human intervention it's difficult to maintain a disciplined backup schedule. In addition these mediums are most likely not encrypted, take a long time to backup large amounts of data and do not save previous versions of your files.

7. Why not backup to optical media or external hard disk?

   If your business files change frequently, it's easy to lose track of where files have been recorded on optical media. Commonly, optical media backups are not encrypted nor password protected. If a disc falls into the wrong hands, someone will have easy access to all of your data.

   The CyberSecure online data backup software stores your data on a secure backup server stored in a secure offsite location.

   Your backups are completely automated so there is no human error to let you down. Your files can be backed up as often as you like. You can restore your data at any time, day or night, without relying on anyone. It only takes seconds to start the process. No waiting to retrieve tape backups from offsite storage and no more shuffling through optical discs or backup tapes to find the right file.

8. How often will my computer or server backup?

   The Standard Edition of CyberSecure Backup will perform an automated daily backup at a scheduled time and as often as you like manually. The Advanced Edition supports multiple backup schedules enabling you to backup various parts of your business as often as you wish.

   For example, you may wish to have your exchange server backed up nightly, whilst your MYOB datafiles can be backed up numerous times per day, all with retention history being kept. The CyberSecure software gives you the ability to restore back any of your backups to any previous point in time.

9. What is the difference between CyberSecure standard, advanced and enterprise editions?

   The standard edition of CyberSecure backup is designed to be an easy-to-use online data backup of a computer or laptop and will perform an automated scheduled backup of your data. The standard version is designed for home and small businesses not using a business server that requires SQL or Exchange.

   The advanced edition of CyberSecure online backup is designed for users with business needs in mind, it contains additional features that allow more frequent automated online backups and the ability to restrict IP access. It allows the successful data backup of Microsoft® SQL, mySQL, Lotus Notes and Microsoft® Exchange mail Accounts, this version is a must have for business users.

   The enterprise edition is for large organisations or companies with highly sensitive and stringent offsite backup requirements. This version combines CyberSecure's advanced online backup software with a hardware appliance that is installed into the customers premises. Enterprise customers gain access to features not found in the standard or advanced products, including data deduplication and the highest levels of security and support.

   If you are not sure which version you require to meet your offsite data backup requirements, contact CyberSecure and a consultant will be happy to discuss your technical requirements in more detail.

10. How long does an online backup take to complete?

    This depends on two things:

    1. How much has to be backed up offsite
    2. The upload speed of your internet connection

    The initial backup requires transmission of all data, so it takes the longest to complete. For extremely large amounts of data it is best to schedule the initial backup over a weekend, however smaller backup sets will simply run over night. If the initial backup is over 30GB we can dispatch an external hard disk to complete the first backup onto. This disk is encrypted with your secret password and is sent back to us where we load this data into our secure offsite backup storage network.

    Using delta technology only the changes within files are backed up offsite, so after the initial backup is complete, online backups will run much faster.

    The most limiting factor on online data backup speed is your upload speed. Having at least a 128k upload connection is recommended if you are a home or small business user and at least a 512k upload connection if you are a corporate customer.

    At any speed, all online data backups run in the background and you can continue working as usual.

11. Do I need to backup my entire computer or server?

    No. Some clients back up only their data files, while others back up their programs and operating systems. Select only the files, directories, or drives that you wish to back up. Of course you can only restore what has been backed up. You need to make sure you are backing up all your critical files this applies to any form of backup.

12. Can I use the Internet while the backup is going?

    You can use the Internet and use email while the backup is taking place, however you my notice a slight reduction of speed while the backup process is taking place.

13. Can I use my computer while the backup is going on?

    You can use your computer whilst the backup is in progress. Windows XP and later are able to backup open files that are in use, so for example you can backup your Microsoft® Outlook database without closing your emails down.

14. Can I access my backed up data from another computer?

    You login via our homepage and restore files to any computer anywhere in the world as long as you have your decryption key.

15. How will I know if my backup is successful?

    You will be able to verify this by receiving an email report or viewing the log file on your computer.

16. Can I backup more than once a day?

    The standard CyberSecure software can only backup automatically once per day and as many times as you like manually, you can upgrade to the advanced version by purchasing an upgrade to the advanced version and you can backup your system according to multiple backup schedules, several times per day.

17. What tasks do I have to do every day to perform a Backup?

    Once you schedule the time and frequency of your backup, the backups runs automatically and you have no daily tasks to perform an offsite backup.

18. Can CyberSecure remote Backup reduce my insurance premium?

    Yes! By showing that you have appropriate backup systems in place, your business continuity premium can be lessened, check with your insurance company or broker to see if this applies to your policy.

19. I accidentally overwrote/deleted/made wrong changes to a document. Can I get my original back?

    Just follow the simple restore process and choose the date of the file that you want to be restored.

    CyberSecure does not know your password, so we cannot read your files or decrypt them for you!

20. How much data can I backup?

    As much data as you want. You will be charged on the limit of data you store. See the plans page for more information.

21. Is there a charge to restore my data?

    There is never a charge to restore your data online and you can to do this as often as required. If you require us to send an external hard drive with a copy of your data and courier or mail or it to you, there will be additional charges. For more information about the plans we offer, please review our online backup plans page.

22. How long do you retain overwritten or deleted files?

    How many backups we keep depends upon the "Retention Policy" you configure when creating the Backup Set. During backup, if the CyberSecure offsite Backup software notices that you have deleted (or updated) a file on your computer, it will put the corresponding deleted (or updated) file already backed up on the backup server into a "Retention Area".

    The retention policy setting defines how long files inside the retention area are kept on the backup server before they are automatically deleted from the server. The retention policy only affects "retained" files (i.e. files that have already been deleted or updated on your computer).

    For those files not yet updated on your computer, the backups of these files are kept in the data area on the backup server and aren't affected by the setting of the retention policy. These backup copies of unchanged files remain on the backup server forever until the original files are removed (or updated) from your computer.

23. I use a laptop and often travel, can I use remote backup?

    Online backups are the ideal solution for a traveling laptop user as well as laptop users in general. Using your Internet connection, you can backup and restore your data from any location at any time. If your laptop is stolen or damaged in transit, you will still be able to restore and access your valuable data.

24. Can I backup more than one computer?

    You can backup more than one computer or server, with the purchase of additional licences for the additional computers or servers.

25. Do I need a special connection?

    The CyberSecure Backup utilises your existing Internet connection for this remote backup service.

26. What about firewalls and CyberSecure online backup?

    To maximize compatibility with home and corporate firewalls, the protocol used by our backup client was designed to look to a firewall just like the SSL protocol used in web browsers. This means that if you are able to surf to our web site, you will be able to connect with our backup software.

    Specifically, our backup client runs on port 443 and mimics SSL's handshaking protocol. Almost all firewalls will pass our backup traffic without reconfiguration. We also support the use of proxy servers. Our web browser interface also uses generic HTTP and HTTPS on ports 80 and 443.

27. What happens if I have an Internet connection failure during a backup?

    If a backup transmission is interrupted in the middle of a backup, the software will continue to retry until a connection can be re-established, then resume the backup at the point of interruption.

28. Can I restore a file or directory to an alternate location to avoid overwriting data?

    Yes you can. This option is selected through the restore screen in the software.

29. What I can I do if I lose my encryption password?

    Lost passwords cannot be recovered. They are NEVER transmitted to our servers. We have NO WAY of retrieving lost passwords or decrypting your data without the encryption password.

    If the password is lost, the user has two options:

    1. Reset their logon password - This would enable login to the account, but without the encryption password, it's impossible to read the encrypted data.
       OR
    2. Re-create the account and start new backups from scratch.

30. Can I backup remote sites?

    The advanced edition gives network administrators the ability to backup remote via a WAN or VPN connection.

31. Can I restrict the IP addresses that access my backups?

    CyberSecure offsite backup software includes the ability to restrict data access to only specific IP addresses. Also a corporate system administrator can define the IP address ranges of their firewalls and access points. Once the definitions are in place, users can only access the data from the allowed locations.

32. Which operating systems and platforms does your offsite data backup service support?

    At present, we support:

    Standard Version:

    • Windows 98
    • Windows ME
    • Windows 2000
    • Windows 2003
    • Windows XP
    • Windows Vista
    • Macintosh OS X v10.2 and above

    Advanced Version

    • Windows 98
    • Windows ME
    • Windows 2000
    • Windows 2003
    • Windows XP
    • Windows Vista
    • Macintosh OS X v10.2 and above
    • Novell Netware
    • Solaris
    • Linux (kernel v2.2 and higher)

    If you have a need for another platform, please contact us as our programming team will be happy to discuss your requirements.

33. What are the requirements for using CyberSecure online backup?

    PC, Laptop or Server with 500 megahertz (MHz) or higher processor clock speed recommended
    128 MB memory
    100 MB of free Hard Disk space
    Internet connection (e.g. Dialup, ADSL, ADSL2 or Cable)

34. How do I restore a Microsoft® SQL database?

    Please follow the instructions below to restore your Microsoft SQL Server databases from the Offsite Backup Server.

    NOTE: These instructions are for SQL server 2000. We are currently drafting instructions for restore under SQL 2005

    1. Download the backup files (.bak) from the Offsite Backup Server Please refer to the [Quick Start - Backup File] section for information on how to download backup files from Offsite Backup Server.
    2. Open Microsoft SQL Enterprise Manager. You can open Microsoft SQL Enterprise Manager from [Start Menu] -> [Program] -> [Microsoft SQL Server] -> [Enterprise Manager]
    3. (Optional) Restore "master" database

       You need to restore the "master" database if you:

       1. are rebuilding all your databases from scratch
       2. have changed any server-wide or database configuration options
       3. have added logins or other login security-related operations.
       4. have created or removed logical backup devices.
       5. have configured the server for distributed queries and remote procedure calls, such as adding linked servers or remote logins.
       You do not need to restore your master database if you just want to restore a user database. For more information on the Microsoft® SQL Server master database, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/sql. To restore the master database, please do the following:
       1. Start Microsoft SQL Server in .Single User Mode.
          1. Right click your Microsoft SQL Server and select [Properties]
          2. Press the [Startup Parameters] button
          3. Add a .-m. parameter to the [Startup Parameters]
          4. Restart Microsoft SQL Server From [Enterprise Manager], right click your Microsoft SQL Server and select [Stop] and then [Start].
       2. Restore master database
          1. From [Enterprise Manager] -> [Tools] -> [Restore Database]
          2. Select [master] in the [Restore as database] drop down list
          3. Select the [From device] radio button.
          4. Press the [Select Devices] button.
          5. From the [Choose Restore Devices], press the [Add] button.
          6. From the [Choose Restore Destination] panel, press the [.] button to choose your master backup (*.bak) from your backup files
          7. Press the [OK] button, to start restoring the master database.
       3. Restart Microsoft SQL Server in Normal Mode.
          1. Remove .-m. parameter from the [Startup Parameters] as in previous step
          2. Restart your Microsoft SQL Server as in previous step
       4. (Optional) Restore .model., .msdb. and .distribution. database

          You need to restore .model. database if you have changed the database template of your SQL Server.

          You need to restore .msdb. database if you have changed the scheduling information or you want to restore the backup and restore history of your databases.

          You need to restore .distribution. database if you are running the replication components of SQL Server.

          You do not need to restore these databases if you just want to restore a user database. For more information on Microsoft SQL Server .model., .msdb. and .distribution. database, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/sql/.

          You need to restore each of these databases one by one. To restore any of these databases, please do the following:

          1. From [Enterprise Manager] -> [Tools] -> [Restore Database]
          2. Select the database to be restored in the [Restore as database] drop down list
          3. Select the [From device] radio button.
          4. Press the [Select Devices] button
          5. Press the [.] button to choose your backup files (*.bak) for the database to be restored
          6. Press the [OK] button
       5. Restore user database(s)

          For each of the database you would like to restore,

          1. From [Enterprise Manager] -> [Tools] -> [Restore Database]
          2. Select the database to be restored in the [Restore as database] drop down list
          3. Select the [Database] radio button.
          4. From the [Show backups of database] drop down list, select the database to be restored
          5. From the [First backup to restore] drop down list, select the snapshot of the database you would like to restore to. You can restore your database to the snapshot of your database at any point of the time between the time you did your full backup and the time you did your last subsequent backup.
          6. Change the [Restore From] entry If you backup files (*.bak) are not in the default directory, you need to update the full path to your backup files by pressing the [Properties] button.
          7. Press the [OK] button
       6. All database(s) will now be restored successfully

35. Why are file-browsing dialogs slow?

    If you find the client software is taking a very long time to load up file browse dialogs, the most likely cause is a bug in the Java Runtime Environment and Windows ZIP folders.

    This problem is currently under review from Sun Microsystems (the makers of the Java language) and so for the meantime, we can offer the following workaround - please disable Windows ZIP folders via the following:

    For Windows XP

    1. Click the "Start" menu
    2. Choose "Run"
    3. Type: regsvr32 /u %windir%\system32\zipfldr.dll
    4. You should see the message "DllUnregisterServer in C:\WINDOWS\system32\zipfldr.dll succeeded"

    For Windows Vista

    1. Download this registry patch
    2. Double-click the vistaunzip.reg file, and then click Continue, Yes, and then OK when prompted.
    3. Restart Windows (the change won't take effect until you do).

36. Cannot mount a database after an online restore operation

    Please see the following Microsoft® knowledge base article

37. After I uninstall the software, I keep getting "Backup Missed" report emails. How do I stop these?

    This has occured because you've still got active backup sets on our servers.

    1. Go to the CyberSecure homepage and login with your account details.
    2. Delete all backup sets from the server

    The server now has no retained backup sets and so will not send out the backup email reports.

    If you still continue to receive these error reports, please contact CyberSecure and a consultant will assist you in removing the online backup sets completely.