1. Never expose it to the internet... Use a VPN if you have to access from outside your network. Most home routers support vpn;s so there is no reason not to

1. Never expose it to the internet... Use a VPN if you have to access from outside your network. Most home routers support vpn;s so there is no reason not to 2. You should always have 3 copies of data, 1 working, 1 local back and 1 geo diverse backup (i.e a spideroak, crashplan, or even a friends house) Most people forget the 3rd but what happens if your house burns down? 3. You should have a completely cold backup of important data, this could be a external hard drive that is only plugged in when backups are done, DVD's, Tape Drive, or something else, but what ever it is it should not be accessible to the system with out manual intervention, this will prevent scripts from deleting everything.