Data backup and recovery tools are failing businesses far more than expected

New research from Zerto has revealed how ineffective some companies’ disaster recovery and cyber recovery strategies can be.

According to the report, backup-related issues are the leading cause of data loss worldwide, accounting for around one-third (32%) of incidents.

Fortunately, the survey revealed backup and recovery came out as the number one priority for IT software investments in 2024, leaving organizations with an opportunity to better prepare themselves against attacks.

Backup issues are causing widespread data loss

Figures from the survey highlighted an average of 4.2 data disruptions annually that require IT intervention, with companies facing an average of one ransomware attack and one internal attack each year.

Nearly half (48%) of organizations said they had paid a ransom despite having backups in the hope of speeding up recovery and minimizing the impacts of such attacks, but only one-fifth (20%) of those paying a ransom managed to fully recover their data.

Phil Goodwin, Research VP at IDC, which carried out the research, commented: “It’s unfortunate to see organizations funneling resources into backup processes only to realize that it was all for naught – paying the ransom money and losing the data.”

In order to address backup issues, Zerto says companies should consider continuous data protection (CDP) to recover to a point immediately before an attack. Combining backup and recovery, disaster recovery, and cyber recovery could also prove instrumental to deploying a more rounded approach.

HPE VP for Storage Product Marketing, Caroline Seymour, added that complex data environments “demand a more sophisticated approach to data protection – one in which traditional backup is not the be-all-end-all but instead one of a suite of complementary tools, including CDP.”

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