Dental Backup & Ransomware Recovery
3-2-1 backups, encrypted offsite copies, image-level restores and a tested recovery plan — so a ransomware day stops being an existential threat.
What you get
- ✓3-2-1 backup strategy: local, offsite, immutable
- ✓Encrypted, HIPAA-aligned offsite copies in U.S. data centers
- ✓Daily verification — alerts when a backup didn’t complete cleanly
- ✓Quarterly test restores (yes, actually restoring, not just “checking the logs”)
- ✓Image-level recovery so a dead server is back in hours, not days
- ✓Ransomware response — containment, recovery, and reporting
Most dental backups are broken
We see this constantly: a USB drive labeled “BACKUP” plugged into the server, running a script someone wrote in 2017, that hasn’t completed successfully in eight months. Nobody knew, because nobody was checking.
We replace that with monitored, encrypted, multi-location backups — and prove they work by actually restoring from them.
What our backup setup includes
- Local image-based snapshots for fast restores
- Encrypted offsite replication to a U.S. data center
- Immutable copies that ransomware can’t encrypt or delete
- Daily success/failure alerts to us — not just a buried email to you
- Quarterly verified restore drills
- Documentation for HIPAA SRA evidence
Ransomware: what happens if it hits
Practices get hit every week — usually through a phishing email or an exposed RDP port. We treat ransomware as an operational scenario, not a crisis. Step one is containment, step two is bringing your PMS and imaging back from clean, pre-incident copies, step three is the post-mortem and reporting. The fewer days your chairs sit empty, the better.
Already been hit? Call us.
If you’re reading this because something is actively wrong, stop and call us at (929) 487-3802. Turning machines off and on, paying the ransom, or hoping it goes away usually makes recovery harder.
Frequently asked questions
▸Our backup says it completes every night. Is that enough?
No — a backup nobody has restored from is a hope, not a plan. The most common failure we find is a job reporting success for years while backing up the wrong directory, or copying database files while the database is running so the copy is unusable. The only way to know is to restore. We run quarterly test restores, and the first one happens with you watching.
▸We just got hit with ransomware. What do we do right now?
Call us at (929) 487-3802 before doing anything else. Do not pay, do not start rebooting, do not delete anything. Disconnect affected machines from the network if you can do so safely, but leave them powered on — memory can hold information useful for recovery. The instinct to turn everything off and on usually makes recovery harder and can destroy evidence you need for reporting.
▸What is a 3-2-1 backup and why does a dental office need one?
Three copies, on two kinds of media, one offsite. In practice: a local image snapshot for fast restores, an encrypted replica in a U.S. data center, and an immutable copy ransomware cannot encrypt or delete even with your admin credentials. That last part matters — modern ransomware specifically hunts down and destroys backups before it triggers.
▸If our server dies, how long until we are seeing patients again?
With image-level local backups: hours, not days — we restore the whole server image to replacement hardware or a temporary host instead of rebuilding Windows, reinstalling your PMS and re-importing data. Without it, a rebuild-from-scratch recovery realistically runs several days of cancelled appointments. The difference in preparation cost is far smaller than the difference in downtime.
▸Does our backup need to be encrypted for HIPAA?
Your backups hold the same patient information as your server, so they deserve the same protection — and a backup drive leaving the building is one of the most common routes to a reportable breach. Encryption is what turns a lost drive into a non-event. We encrypt every copy, local and offsite, and hand you documentation of it as Security Risk Analysis evidence.
▸Do you back up imaging as well as the practice management database?
Yes — and this is a gap we find constantly. Practices often have the PMS database backed up properly while years of intraoral scans, panoramic images and CBCT volumes sit on a single imaging PC with no backup at all. Those images are part of the patient record. We include every imaging store in scope and verify the restores.
Ready to stop fighting your tech?
We work with dental practices across NY. Most quotes in under an hour.