While most people backup their photos and files onto the cloud for extra storage, backups are critical to protecting your sensitive data from ransomware attacks. Ransomware attacks are when cyber criminals prevent users from accessing their data until a sum of money is paid, this is typically done through complex encryption techniques. According to the Identity Theft Research Center, in 2021 the number of data breaches has increased by 68% and ransomware attacks now account for over 20% of all cyber attacks.
The best way to protect yourself and the university from these data compromises is to create backups of all your data in case it is lost, stolen, or encrypted. The blog for World Backup Day suggests generating two backups, one on a cloud service and one on a physical hard drive to secure your information.
How To Set Up OneDrive
At Fordham University, all students and faculty are given access to OneDrive, a Microsoft service used to save any of your documents or photos to a separate location in the cloud in case of a ransomware attack. OneDrive is free for everyone and using your Fordham University Office 365 subscription you can save up to 1 TB of files. You can even use OneDrive with a non-Fordham email and get 5GB of storage for free.
For seamless access to your files, go to onedrive.microsoft.com or install the OneDrive client on your computer (Mac or Windows). Once you login with your Fordham account, you can select which files to upload. Students can access these accounts even after they graduate making OneDrive a permanent solution to saving your information.
University-owned devices should come with OneDrive downloaded already, but you can use one of the following guides to setting up your account. You can also contact the IT Service Desk at 718-817-3999 with any questions or concerns about backups.
- Setup OneDrive for Fordham-managed Windows 10 PC
- Install OneDrive on a personal Windows 10 computer
- Install OneDrive on Mac OSx
How can I retrieve a backup?
Any file saved to your Fordham University OneDrive is automatically synced to the OneDrive cloud storage. In the event of file loss, you can retrieve the files by visiting OneDrive through the Fordham web portal.
1. Log into your fordham.edu portal and navigate to the My Apps page.
2. Select Microsoft Office 365, and from Apps, select OneDrive. This will bring you to your OneDrive cloud folder containing all of the synchronized files.
3. Select the file you want to retrieve, then click Download.
How can I retrieve previous versions of files?
You can also retrieve an earlier version of a file if there were changes made to it. OneDrive will save up to 500 versions of a file. To restore an older version of a file:
1. Log into your fordham.edu portal and navigate to the My Apps page.
2. Select Office 365 (a blue cloud icon), then select OneDrive. This will bring you to your OneDrive cloud folder containing all of the synchronized files.
3. Select the file you want a previous version of, then click the three dots to the right of the file name.
4. On the dropdown menu that appears, select “Version history.”
5. A menu should appear showing previous versions of the document with dates. Revert the file to the version of your choice by selecting the three dots to the right of the version name, then select “Restore.”
