WannaCry ransomware has wreaked havoc on windows computer systems since its first major attack on May 2017. Hosting companies were not immune from these attacks; some of the windows webs hosting providers were hit hard, mainly those who were slow to upgrade their infrastructure and were running Windows 2003 and Windows 2008. These attacks resulted in the loss of data and weeks of an outage. Website owners/admins neglect the fact that they are responsible for all data backups although hosting companies have disaster recovery plans in place but it might take a long time to recover data or some cases recovered data might be a few weeks old. Since most of the windows web hosting plans are using Plesk control panel I will be going over different Backup option offered through Plesk.

Manual Local backup: you can easily initiate a backup through Plesk by going to “Websites & Domains > Backup Manager > Back up “. Now you can select which content you would like to backup “domain configuration, mail configuration and content, user file and databases” for detail information please visit our KB. By default, backups are stored on the Plesk server, in an event of server failure, you can lose both your website and backups, after backup completion you should download the backup to your computer and delete the old backup from the Plesk server. To download your latest backup go to “Websites & Domains > Backup Manager “and choose the backup you would like to download and click on “download”. I suggest that you keep multiple copies of your backup in different storage media like on-premise backup storage, USB drive or burn it on CD.

Remote storage backup: if you are technically savvy I suggest that you take advantage of remote storage backup option in Plesk. You are required to create an FTP server, either on your local computer or local storage, go to “Websites & Domains > Backup Manager > Remote Storage Settings > FTP” select the use of “FTP storage” and enter your FTP server information. Now your backup will be automatically stored in your remote storage you also have the option of creating a scheduled backup, for detail information please visit our KB.

Cloud Backup: Backup to cloud pro is a paid add-on option offered by Plesk. You can schedule an automatic backup of your website to be stored in most popular Cloud Storages like DropBox, One Drive, and Google drive.