If anything, the earlier attacks this week which took down Facebook and Twitter for a couple of hours highlights the perils of cloud computing (where you’re using web-based, rather than desktop/laptop-based software). A strategic strike, such as a denial-of-service attack can bring the whole system crumbling down.

Imagine not having access to a traffic campaign you’re running on a PPC, PPV network and not being able to access your affiliate panel off an affiliate networks interface, and you could incurring huge opportunity cost in your business.

One safeguard is to regularly schedule weekly backups of your data. Some web services incorporate this feature, most do not. Even if the service provides this support, it’s often a highly manual process.

If you’re backing up data on your own servers, getting your system admin to set up a series of automated jobs to backup your data every 24 hours can be a lifesaver, especially if things go awry.

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Another caveat – while web services have obvious advantages such as a great deal of portability, zero or minimal support costs and convenience, I’d stop short of saving critical data, such as passwords, or confidential data on them. The open nature of these services often incorporates easy access features which might also provide loopholes for others to enter.

If in doubt, store your data locally – after all it’s your business on the line.