A comprehensive backup strategy is essential for any cyber security framework. Recognising the importance of safeguarding data against threats like corruption, loss, or downtime is common sense. Yet, it's surprising to find that data recovery efforts often face significant challenges, with a notable proportion failing to achieve their intended outcomes.
Our partnership with Predatar, a UK-based specialist in backup management software, has shed light on some concerning statistics in this area. Predatar's experience in the management of backups spanning over an exabyte (equivalent to over one million terabytes) uncovered that roughly 1 in 14 data recovery attempts are unsuccessful, and typically, organisations test only about 1% of their backups for recovery efficacy. This insight highlights a significant gap in many organisations' backup testing and validation practices.
The impact of these findings is considerable. During data loss or system outage scenarios, backups are the primary recovery method. However, the near 8% failure rate of these recovery attempts points to a lack of reliability and raises serious concerns about organisational preparedness.
It might seem reasonable to assume that successfully recovering a single item from a backup implies that the rest of the data is also secure and recoverable. However, this assumption doesn't hold up against the reality of diverse recovery needs and potential data corruption or malware issues within backups. The concept of a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) illustrates this point clearly. For businesses that require data recovery within a specific timeframe, any delay beyond this period can be detrimental, regardless of the success of isolated recovery tests.
Given the critical nature of recovery and resilience in today's business environments, these issues are increasingly becoming a focus of governance and board-level attention. This trend underscores the need for rigorous testing and validation processes for backup recoverability.
To address these challenges, our Predatar Recovery Assurance solution offers a comprehensive suite of features designed to enhance the reliability and effectiveness of backup strategies:
- Automated Recovery Testing: Simplifies and standardises the process of validating backup recoverability.
- XDR Scanning in a Clean Room Environment: Ensures that recovered backups are free from malware and vulnerabilities, thus protecting data integrity.
- AI-Assisted Backup Selection: Utilises artificial intelligence to prioritise backups for testing based on their criticality to recovery performance.
- Detailed Reporting on Recovery Performance: Provides valuable insights into recovery success rates, helping organisations improve their backup and recovery processes.
Compatible with industry-leading backup solutions like Veeam, Rubrik, Cohesity, and IBM Spectrum Storage, the Predatar Recovery Assurance solution plays a key role in strengthening the overall cyber security framework of an organization.
