Business Continuity Now: Power Cuts, Cyber Attacks and Data Loss

This week’s global Microsoft 365 outage showed how quickly normal working stops. Outlook, Teams and Copilot went down from Thursday evening, and GP surgeries, schools, courts, police forces and Parliament fell back on phones and paper. That was one provider having a bad day, with no attack involved. A national power failure, a cut fibre link, a destructive cyber attack or a lost data centre would hit harder and last far longer.

Business continuity: the key points to act on now

• Assume it will happen to you. Cyber risk is rising faster than at any time we have seen, and long power cuts and winter storm damage are more likely than ever.
• Total data loss is now a real risk. That includes your cloud files and email, and the AI chat history and AI-produced work your team now relies on.
• Keep critical kit powered. A lithium power station keeps your firewall, broadband and key devices running through hours without mains power.
• Add a backup internet connection. Starlink satellite internet keeps you online when local fibre, exchanges or mobile masts fail.
• Hold your own copy of your cloud files. Back up OneDrive, SharePoint or Google Drive to a UniFi UNAS on your premises, with versions reaching back at least a month.
• Bring your defences up to date. A current next-generation firewall such as a UniFi Cloud Gateway, ThreatDown antivirus, and PCArmour Pro on every PC.
• Agree how you will reach us. Phone, WhatsApp, email, control panel chat and pre-arranged secure chat mean one failure never cuts you off.
• Watch the live picture. The free OSIR monitors track world events, cyber threats and power cuts as they happen.
• Make the plan now. Talk to us before the next outage, not during it.

Why outages, cyber attacks and data loss are a bigger risk than ever

The cyber threat is not what it was even a month ago. AI lets attackers find and exploit weaknesses at a speed and scale that simply wasn’t possible before, and the risk is now growing exponentially. The NCSC has warned of a real prospect of an unprecedented rise in cyber incidents. We set out what that means for UK businesses in A next-level AI cyber war has started.

At the same time, the chance of long power cuts and winter storm damage is higher than ever. The government’s relaunched Be Ready campaign asks everyone to be able to cope for three days without outside help. Our guide to preparing your business for the Be Ready campaign covers what that means for your IT, from broadband failover to a failure at the heart of London’s internet.

Total loss of data is now a real possibility too, whether through ransomware, a compromised admin account, or a data centre destroyed by fire or by military action. It also reaches places nobody planned for a few months ago. AI chat history, prompts and the work your team produces inside AI tools usually live only with the AI provider. If that account or service is lost, the work goes with it. Save anything important from AI tools into your business’s own files, so your backups cover it.

Keep critical equipment running through a long power cut

A traditional UPS buys minutes. A lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) portable power station can keep your router, firewall, network switch, phones and a laptop running for hours, and the best models switch over fast enough that nothing restarts. Bear in mind that mobile masts often have limited battery backup, so 4G failover can disappear early in a regional power cut. Our portable power station finder compares UK models on price, output, UPS speed and runtime, with our recommended picks for offices of every size.

Add Starlink as a backup internet connection

A second broadband line often runs through the same street cabinet, exchange or duct as the first, and 4G can drop out when local masts lose power. Starlink satellite internet depends on none of these, which makes it a strong backup connection for most businesses. Paired with a UniFi Cloud Gateway, it can take over automatically when your main line fails and hand back when it returns.

Mount the dish with a clear view of the sky, keep the dish and its router on your power station so the connection survives a power cut, and test the failover regularly. Starlink isn’t completely independent: its traffic still joins the wider internet through ground stations, so it can’t help if the internet itself is down. It does cover the far more likely failures, such as a cut fibre line, a failed exchange or a regional power cut. Our network installation team can set it up as automatic failover on your network.

Back up your cloud files to a UniFi UNAS with versioning

Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace keep their services running. Keeping a recoverable history of your data is your job. We now recommend that every business keeps a synced, versioned backup of its online files on a UniFi UNAS in its own building.

The UNAS is a modern, secure storage platform. It runs automated backups on a schedule, gives staff easy access to files on your own network, and offers secure external access only if you choose to enable it. With the wave of cyber attacks we have seen recently, we no longer advise QNAP, Synology or any other NAS for this job.

To work out how much space you need, use our UniFi UNAS storage calculator. It adds up your files, previous versions and growth, recommends the UNAS, drives and RAID level to buy, and sizes the cloud space for an off-site copy. Add that second copy off-site and test a restore regularly, so you know the backup works before you need it.

Update your firewall, antivirus and PC protection now

It is really time to check what sits between your business and the internet. If your firewall is several years old, or it is the router your broadband provider sent, replace it with a current next-generation firewall such as a UniFi Cloud Gateway, professionally installed and kept updated.

Behind the firewall, every device needs ThreatDown, our recommended professional antivirus, with malware and ransomware protection managed from one console.

Then add PCArmour Pro, our top recommendation for system protection on every PC. It locks down DNS, watches for ransomware and isolates an infected PC in seconds, checks every machine for known vulnerabilities each night, and runs scheduled desktop backups that can go straight to your UNAS.

How to contact IT Pro Expert during an outage

When email goes down, email support goes with it. We have opened several ways to reach us, so one failure never leaves you stranded:

• phone calls
• WhatsApp
• email
• chat inside the customer support control panel on our website
• OSIR Secure Chat for pre-arranged chats: an end-to-end encrypted room shared by private link, deleted automatically after 1 to 48 hours

Agree your fallback routes with us now, and keep a copy of the details on paper. Contract customers deal directly with a senior engineer rather than a call centre, and even complex issues are typically resolved the same day.

Follow live events on the OSIR monitors

Our free OSIR site runs live dashboards that update around the clock, so you can see what is happening before it reaches your door:

• Global Situation Monitor: world events, outages and conflict, with a UK Risk Index and early warnings
• Cyber Threat Monitor: the vulnerabilities being exploited right now, including those used in ransomware
• Power Cut Map: every live power cut across Great Britain
• UK Electricity Grid: the generation mix, official warnings and spare margin
• Weather UK Live: Met Office forecasts, warnings and rain radar

The full set of OSIR monitors and tools also covers the UK gas network, health, radiation and the economy.