Two out of three companies lose data due to failed backups

Of the 90 percent of UK enterprises that have been forced to turn to their backup system, only 27 percent were able to recover all of their information and documents -- down from 45 percent in 2022.

A survey from encrypted drive maker Apricorn finds 32 percent of the security decision makers in large enterprises surveyed attributed the unsuccessful recovery to a lack of robust backup processes, up from two percent in 2022.

In addition 22 percent admit, "We don't have sufficiently robust backups in place to allow rapid recovery from any attack," a rise from 15 percent in 2022. As almost a quarter (24 percent) of respondents say that ransomware has been the main cause of a data breach at their organisation, an increase from 15 percent last year. This shows a significant point of weakness as backups play a vital role in maintaining business continuity in the wake of a ransomware attack.

Jon Fielding, Apricorn's managing director EMEA, says, "Fewer companies today are successfully restoring all of their backed up data than in 2022. This fall is paralleled by a rise in recognition that backup processes are inadequate. Having processes in place is probably less than half the battle. For a business to respond effectively to an incident that has disrupted critical data -- whether that's a cyber attack, employee error, or technical failure -- processes must be rigorously tested and rehearsed, and continuously refined and updated."

The research also shows an interesting shift in companies' backup strategies away from automation towards a manual approach. Backups were automated at only 50 percent of the surveyed companies, a drop from 93 percent in 2022. Manual backups are now carried out at 48 percent of companies, a significant increase from six percent last year. There's a rise from one percent to 16 percent backing up to personal storage repositories such as removable hard drives. The percentage backing up to both central and personal repositories is still fairly low, at 38 percent across both automated and manual approaches.

"The upsurge in manual backups is likely to be the result of an increasing trend for IT teams to give employees greater autonomy over routine tasks," adds Fielding. "It's good news if more employees are being required to make local backups of the data they create and handle, especially when working remotely. However, this relies on people remembering to execute the backup -- and to do it correctly. This is why a 'belt and braces' strategy that includes automated backups to a central location is vitally important."

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