62 World Backup Day Quotes from 51 Experts for 2024

Solutions Review’s Tim King compiled this roundup of 62 World Backup Day quotes from 51 experts for 2024, part of our ongoing coverage of the enterprise storage and data protection market.

As part of Solutions Review’s ongoing coverage of the enterprise storage, data protection, and backup and disaster recovery markets, lead editor Tim King offers this more than 10,000-word resource. The World Backup Day quotes listed below come from the most on-trend executives in the industry, and its Solutions Review’s aim to connect enterprise technologists with Expert Insights, best practices, and buying resources to enhance your work life.

World Backup Day quotes have been vetted for relevance and ability to add business value. These are the most actionable of the hundreds of World Backup Day quotes we received, and Solutions Review editors believe these are actionable and may impact a number of verticals, regions, and organization sizes.

Note: World Backup Day quotes are listed in the order we received them.

World Backup Day Quotes: Expert Insights for 2024

Eric Herzog, CMO at Infinidat

“As we recognize World Backup Day 2024, the industry needs to acknowledge backup has dramatically changed so much that new critical capabilities are needed. Traditionally, enterprises have backup software to retain copies of all their data. Backup targets have usually been measured on how fast they are, their ability to reduce the amount of data backed up, and how economical they are for storage. However, with cyberattacks hitting enterprises an average of over 1,200 times per week and security analysts forecasting that impact of cybercrime on enterprise will be $9.5 trillion in 2024, it is imperative that we recognize that it is not just primary storage but secondary storage/backup storage that is at risk as well. Cybercriminals can snatch login details for admin management, encrypt backup data, delete backup data, change backup data retention periods or make copies of the backup data to be transferred to the cybercriminal’s network. This has changed everything about backup storage, demanding a new set of capabilities that combine cyber storage resilience and cyber storage recovery on secondary storage and backup platforms.

The key to success is to select cyber secure backup storage. Backup storage needs to take on additional responsibilities, such as expediting near-instantaneous cyber recovery and hosting recoveries with a dual role. Even if backup storage fights off a ransomware or malware attack, the cyberattack may have already reached production data on primary storage systems. Enterprises need a dramatically higher level of cyber resilience to ensure that they are equipped to handle ransomware, malware and other cyberattacks. So, what does this mean from a technical standpoint? Cyber secure backup storage needs to incorporate the following capabilities: immutability of data, high availability, data encryption, multifactor authentication, service-oriented automation, and cyber storage resilience and recovery guaranteed SLAs. Invariably, enterprises must deploy these broader cyber storage capabilities for backup in order to deal with the incredible volume of cyberattacks.”

Carl D’Halluin, CTO at Datadobi

“This World Backup Day, I want to remind everyone that protecting your data with backups isn’t just a technical formality. Given the virtually unavoidable risks of ransomware, malicious or accidental deletions, and countless other threats – it’s absolutely crucial for the health of your business.

The first step? Get your arms around your data. You cannot protect it, if you do not know what you have. Then…

A well-thought-out and tested data backup strategy, together with a combination of robust data security and management solutions, can significantly enhance operations resilience. Add to that the crucial but sometimes missed step of a “golden copy” (i.e., an immutable copy of your business-critical data in a secure and remote site) and your business will be protected today, as well as ideally positioned to support business continuity well into the future.”

Martin Zugec, Technical Solutions Director at Bitdefender

“World Backup Day is a reminder to businesses about the importance of backing up data and responding faster as ransomware attacks continue to evolve globally. Historically, backups were not designed to address or protect against malicious intent, such as cyberattacks or intentional data deletion. Rather, backups were created as a means to recover from accidental data loss, hardware failures, and other unforeseen events.

Professional ransomware groups go to great lengths to prevent their victims from restoring encrypted data. We are seeing an increase of attacks targeting shadow volume copies or infecting backups at later stages of the campaign. Infected backup can result in IT administrators inadvertently restoring adversary access to previously attacked systems.

Newer technology models such as Extended Detection and Response (XDR) helps detect complex attacks early by correlating threat events and behaviors across multiple environments to help shut down adversaries before they can encrypt data for ransom and/or exfiltrate data for extortion. 

It comes down to layered security, minimizing the attack surface, and using automated controls to block most security events. Identity Access Management (IAM) will continue to play an equally critical role. Just one hijacked user account can compromise all backups, no matter where they are located. The classic 3-2-1 rule of having three copies of data on two different media, with one copy off-site for disaster recovery should be followed, but it is no substitute for a solid cyber defense.”

Rob T. Lee, Chief Curriculum at SANS Institute

“How can organizations evaluate their current backup solutions for cloud compatibility?

Organizations should conduct a comprehensive assessment that includes checking for support of cloud-native APIs, the ability to handle multi-cloud environments, scalability to match cloud workloads, and robust encryption and security features that comply with cloud security standards. It’s also crucial to test the backup solution’s performance in terms of speed, reliability, and data integrity during transfer to and from the cloud. A gap analysis, comparing current capabilities with desired cloud functionalities, can highlight areas needing improvement.

What are the challenges and solutions for integrating on-premises backup systems with cloud services?

Integrating on-premises backup systems with cloud services presents challenges such as data transfer speed limitations, security vulnerabilities during data transit, and compatibility issues between on-premises hardware and cloud platforms. Solutions include using cloud gateway appliances to bridge on-premises systems with cloud storage seamlessly, employing dedicated network connections for faster, more secure data transfer, and leveraging hybrid cloud backup solutions designed to work in both environments. Adopting a cloud management platform can also simplify the orchestration of resources across the hybrid environment.

What role do automation and AI play in cloud-compatible backup strategies?

Automation and AI can significantly enhance cloud-compatible backup strategies by optimizing backup schedules based on data usage patterns, predicting potential data loss events, and automatically adjusting resources to meet backup demands. AI algorithms can improve data deduplication and compression techniques, reducing storage costs and improving backup efficiency. Furthermore, AI-driven security can help identify and mitigate threats in real time, ensuring the integrity of backup data. Automation simplifies the management of complex, multi-cloud environments, allowing for more consistent and reliable backup processes.”

Matt Waxman, Senior Vice President & General Manager for Data Protection at Veritas Technologies

“Uniting data protection with data security and data governance improves cyber resilience.

Malware attacks affect the entirety of IT. Multiple teams typically manage the response using disparate tools. Hackers love patchwork defenses because the interaction points can become potential vulnerabilities. An integrated ecosystem of data security, data protection and data governance is the only way to achieve gap-free cyber resilience.

The cloud is not inherently safer.

In the cloud-native era, organizations often incorrectly assume they’re buying an outcome, when they’re really buying infrastructure. There’s a shared responsibility model between CSPs and their customers around data protection that far too many fail to understand. CSPs are responsible for the resilience of the cloud, but customers are responsible for the resilience in the cloud. You’re still responsible for protecting your data.

Today’s complex, heterogeneous, multi-cloud environments require autonomous data management.

The proliferation of applications and data from edge to core to clouds is unprecedented. Real-time manual protection is no longer possible. Reducing operational complexity through data management that responsibly harnesses AI and hyper-automation to continually self-provision and self-optimize should be your goal.”

Bin Fan, Chief Architect and VP of Open-Source at Alluxio

“Every year, the amount of data we produce increases significantly. World Backup Day is a call to action, urging us to reconsider our strategies for simplifying backup and recovery to keep pace with the significant increase in data production each year.

As we scale the data storage, timely data movement is a necessity, whether for archiving data in more economical storage or for duplicating data to another center as part of a disaster recovery plan. However, this process can be complex and operational-heavy. We should keep optimizing and streamlining data movement across multiple storage systems.

On this World Backup Day, let’s commit to exploring more efficient and effective ways to protect and manage our growing data, ensuring we’re prepared for any unforeseen circumstances that may arise.”

Katie McCullough, CISO at Panzura

“These days, the concept of a ‘backup’ has evolved beyond mere data preservation. It now embodies the broader and more critical notion of data resiliency. As we mark World Backup Day 2024, it’s crucial to recognize that simple backup practices alone can’t be relied upon to truly safeguard our data; it’s more about ensuring the availability, confidentiality, and integrity of data at a time when it’s continuously under threat. Think beyond traditional backup strategies by integrating immutable data and robust security controls from the outset. This approach not only enhances data recovery capabilities but also fortifies data against cyber threats, making resilience an intrinsic part of the data recovery process. It’s astonishing, yet common, to see organizations lack clear documentation or checklists of their most critical data elements and therefore fail to put the corresponding security controls in place.

One thing we get asked about regularly is our use of data ‘snapshots’ and immutable storage. Snapshots – which we hold billions of at any given time – capture the state of a system at a particular point in time, allowing for quick restoration and minimal data loss. Immutable storage, on the other hand, prevents data from being altered or deleted after it’s written, ensuring that even in the event of a cyberattack, the original data remains untouched and retrievable. Together, they form a robust defense, safeguarding against data loss and enhancing the integrity and resilience of digital assets. In fact, no customer that has followed our best practice guidelines has ever lost their data.  

This World Backup Day, let’s commit to a culture of regular testing and formalized data recovery plans, ensuring data isn’t just backed up but is truly resilient and recoverable in the exact form needed, exactly when needed. Let’s also not overlook the importance of data retention and disposal policies to minimize exposure and comply with evolving data privacy regulations.”

Brent Torre, General Manager at Kaseya

“Unfortunately for us, attackers are very smart, resourceful and relentless. Their ultimate goal in launching a ransomware attack is to get paid. They know that the majority of IT professionals generally follow basic best practices, which include backup, so the standard operating procedure for ransomware attacks is to identify if any backups are present in the environment and neutralize these backups before launching the ransomware attack. If the business can’t use the backups to recover, the attacker is more likely to get paid. Maintaining immutable backups in a 3-2-1 strategy (at least 3 backup copies, at least 2 types of media, at least 1 copy offsite) not only helps keeps data safe from cyberattacks, but also other issues, including natural disasters that can compromise data integrity and damage businesses.”

“Ransomware attacks are rampant, and they’re wiping out businesses. Now more than ever, every business needs to assume they are at risk and act accordingly, urgently. Businesses can no longer rely on basic backup tools as a sufficient cybersecurity strategy. Bad actors are now targeting backups – stored both locally and in cloud infrastructure like Azure – in their attacks, making it harder for businesses, especially small businesses, to recover if the unthinkable occurs. World Backup Day is a great reminder that it’s more important than ever for businesses to have a multi-cloud backup strategy to protect data from attackers and, ultimately, ensure business continuity.”

George Axberg, Vice President, Data Protection at VAST Data

Neil Jones, Director of Cybersecurity Evangelism at Egnyte

Anthony Cusimano, Technical Director at Object First

“Whether you’re at the forefront of developing GenAI applications or just starting to explore the possibilities, this year’s World Backup Day serves as a vital reminder to evaluate and fortify your data infrastructure. It’s essential to delineate how data flows across the AI lifecycle, from the initial ingestion phase through training and inference, to the final archiving step, understanding that each phase demands specific storage solutions for optimal data handling and access.

Several questions to ask yourself: 

• Can your backup system scale from terabytes to petabytes seamlessly, accommodating diverse data lakes and object stores without sacrificing performance or agility?
• Is your infrastructure equipped to manage the compliance, governance, and resilience of large datasets during the AI lifecycle, ensuring swift recovery and data integrity without slowing down the process?
• For AI inference and edge computing, does your system ensure data protection across your distributed environment without latency or impacting real-time decisions?

As World Backup Day approaches on March 31st, it’s a timely moment to reassess our data resilience strategies in the GenAI context. Traditional filesystem-based architectures from the VM-based world now fall short in the face of the challenges posed by data lakes, cloud-native applications, and the vast scales of AI-driven data processes. Organizations need to consolidate and optimize their disparate backup tools into a unified, serverless, and scalable platform.”

“World Backup Day is a great reminder for businesses to make sure their data backup strategy is sound, provides an ability to protect previous backups from being over-written, and is exercised regularly. Nothing will halt a business in its tracks more than losing access to their data and not having an ability to recover it. This has never been as much a risk as it is now. 

Sobering statistics from data aggregator Statistica estimates that 72 percent of businesses were affected by Ransomware in 2023 and that only 52 percent of companies recovered their data after paying the ransom. Despite increased spending on cybersecurity across the industry, percentage of companies affected continues to grow year over year. Adopting new cybersecurity solutions is only part of the answer to protecting your company. A good backup strategy can ensure that you can recover your data in the least amount of time possible even in the case of a major ransomware outbreak.”

“While we may live in a new, AI-powered world, the fundamentals and importance of backing up your data remain the same. Enterprise backup is an incredibly complex set of disciplines, including the classification of data, varying laws around data protection depending on geographic region, and requirements which may not be business-oriented but specifically relate to the sensitivity of the data in question. In addition to this, backups must also consider the various locations of data, including containers, virtual machines, archive solutions and even external systems, like Microsoft, which hold a significant amount of every organization’s data; all need to be considered for backup security and integrity. This does not even begin to address the issue of shadow IT and the implications for data security if you don’t know where data is being stored. The most volatile and important data at your organization should be prioritized with the fastest possible access, with the minimum downtime, but to do this, your data needs to be properly classified.”

“Enterprise backup is an incredibly complex set of disciplines, including the classification of data, varying laws around data protection depending on geographic region, and requirements which may not be business-oriented but specifically relate to the sensitivity of the data in question. In addition to this, backups must also consider the various locations of data, including containers, virtual machines, archive solutions and even external systems, like Microsoft, which hold a significant amount of every organization’s data; all need to be considered for backup security and integrity. This does not even begin to address the issue of shadow IT and the implications for data security if you don’t know where data is being stored. The most volatile and important data at your organization should be prioritized with the fastest possible access, with the minimum downtime, but to do this, your data needs to be properly classified.”

Ratan Tipirneni, President & CEO at Tigera

“The rapid pace of digital transformation continues to create new opportunities–and threats–for today’s organizations. The increasing availability of Ransomware-as-a-Service, a model which offers bad actors sophisticated vulnerability distribution while simultaneously isolating them from the risks of the trade, will lead to a worsening security situation for unprepared enterprises. This World Backup Day, enterprises and small businesses alike must remember that security is not a one-time effort; it’s an ongoing process that organizations of all sizes must prioritize. As the threat landscape changes and evolves, businesses must constantly re-evaluate and adapt their security measures to stay ahead of potential threats, prioritizing key best practices like regularly backing up data.”

Narayana Pappu, CEO at Zendata

“With average data generation growing at 24.1 percent annually, organizations are spending more money year-over-year on storage, computing, and backup. Privacy regulations that mandate organizations to allow data deletion or portability only increase complexity by requiring organizations to keep multiple copies of information by user case. For example, a fintech company might allow users to delete their information and close their accounts, but they might have to keep a copy of the information for compliance and regulatory requirements. Organizations can save significant spend (a typical enterprise spends more than $10 million on backups) by using AI-enabled automation to evaluate the quality of information they are backing up, remove duplication, and ensure recovery of the most valuable data quickly in case there is an incident.”

Matthieu Chan Tsin, Vice President – Head of Cybersecurity Services at Cowbell

“In today’s evolving cyber threat landscape, cyberattack techniques and tactics are more sophisticated than ever before. Companies are no longer asking themselves “if” they’ll be attacked, but “when”, and must focus on ways to mitigate the impact of a compromise. While data backups may seem simple, they are a fundamental component of comprehensive risk management and incident response strategies.

This World Backup Day, organizations should recognize the impact backups can have on:

• Data recovery: Enterprises have access to valuable data, making them extremely vulnerable to cyberattacks. Regular backups serve as a way to restore systems following a compromise or internal failure. In case of an attack, backups can help minimize downtime when trying to recover data, ultimately reducing the impact of an attack.
• Ransomware Mitigation: Ransomware attacks are detrimental to organizations since their internal networks are compromised, and they often have to pay  hefty sums to recover them. By gaining access to and extracting the most valuable information, threat actors can command higher prices for the organization’s most sensitive data. Having up-to-date backups enables cybersecurity professionals to recover data and files, avoiding giving into ransom demands.

By prioritizing backup solutions and practices, enterprises can enhance their resilience against cyber threats and mitigate the impact of attacks on their operations.”

Darren Guccione, CEO and Co-Founder at Keeper Security

“Ransomware is among the most common cyber attack vectors globally, according to a recent Keeper survey of IT and security leaders. As attacks continue increasing in volume and severity, regularly backing up data to the cloud can help both enterprises and small businesses protect and restore data without having to pay a cent of ransom. Adoption of a zero-knowledge, zero-trust solution can help simplify protecting cloud backups and have the added benefit of mitigating the impact of ransomware attacks. A zero-trust security model with least privileged access and strong data backups will limit the blast radius in the event that a cyber attack does occur.

World Backup Day reminds us that despite the growing number of sophisticated malicious actors and the ever-evolving threat landscape, strategic solution adoption and following simple best practices can protect organizations against devastating cyber incidents and mitigate the effect of a successful attack. Strong identity and access management at the front end will help prevent the most common cyber attacks that can lead to a disastrous data breach. A proactive cybersecurity strategy and prudent investment are crucial, because no organization is immune to attack.”

John Anthony Smith, Founder and CSO at Conversant Group

“Business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) is often top-of-mind for executives in mitigating risk to the business. Backups are arguably the top control in reducing the impact of the three major types of data loss events: Human error related, natural disasters, and the most destructive (but least considered) of them all: threat-actor-caused mass destruction events. 

The tactics and techniques of ransomware actors have always been rapidly evolving. However, in the past two years, we have seen an increase in the rate of evolution of the complexity, speed, sophistication, and aggressiveness of these crimes. Old approaches of being alerted to “security behaviors,” then researching and responding to those threats, no longer work because dwell time is too short, and attacks are fast, aggressive, and frequent. 

Few companies are adequately protecting their ability to restore their systems in case of a mass destruction event; and because breaches are more destructive than ever, ensuring that backups are immutable, redundant, resilient, and all pathways to them are secure and survivable is paramount. One challenge is that the definition of “immutable” varies by product manufacturer. Many do not offer true immutability (or, the inability to delete, alter, move, or destroy data unless preset, prewritten retention expiration times are satisfied). Even if a product is immutable, there must be proper security orchestration around these backups to ensure they are isolated from the network environment and that all access to them is appropriately restricted and secured. 

IT and security teams must encourage and enhance backup protocols when it comes to protecting the organization’s valuable data because once data is lost forever, many companies never recover. Security should work backwards in the breach progression. Threat actors work with the end goal of encrypting and destroying backups and production data in mind to leave organizations with few options; so security should begin by ensuring resilience. Once backups are secured against threat-actor-caused mass destruction events, the organization is also properly secured against human error and natural disaster scenarios, ensuring a stronger BC/DR stance.”

Glenn Gray, Director of Product Marketing at Auvik

“IT teams face a daily onslaught of requests, tickets and other maintenance activities, and configuration backups are not always at the top of the list of priorities. However, network backups are imperative to business compliance, continuity and profitability. According to new data that will be published on April 4, there is a significant discrepancy between perceptions of the C-suite and IT technicians when it comes to network configuration backups. In a survey, C-suite respondents were more likely to report daily configuration backups (36 percent) compared to technicians (20 percent). The discrepancy indicates that either management is not aware of the real amount of work going into configuration management tasks, or technicians are simply too time-strapped and over-burdened to adhere to company policy when it comes to network backup frequency. The latter is highly likely, as another part of the research also indicated that configuration backups is one of the most commonly outsourced network related tasks/activities, with 42 percent of respondents indicating this is outsourced. Other parts of the research point to a lack of skilled workers and difficulties with hiring as a critical challenge facing IT teams this year leading to even more capacity issues.

To stay on top of network backups and documentation, IT teams must look at automating these functions as much as possible. Investing in the right resources and tooling, such as the adoption of network management platforms with automation tools, can help ensure that organizations adhere to their security and compliance standards. By employing these automation tools, organizations can prevent overburdening their employees with menial but necessary tasks.”

Richard Sorosina, Chief Technical Security Officer at Qualys

“Performing regular and thorough backups is critical, and should definitely be a part of every organization’s cyber resilience strategy. That said, attackers are now aware that it is common practice to create backups and have adapted their tactics accordingly. Ransomware gangs no longer only target the big fish anymore. They are opportunistic attackers, looking for easy targets who will be most likely to pay up. That includes small-medium enterprises that will be more impacted by a breach, which is why it’s so important to measure, communicate and eliminate one’s cyber risk.

This World Backup Day, it’s my hope that organizations will consider their holistic approach to security – starting with backing up their data, to reviewing their overall cyber hygiene and security posture to include simple steps that can help ensure their organization’s and customer’s data is safer and more secure.”

Mitch Seigle, CMO at Spectra Logic

“As World Backup Day dawns, it’s essential to recognize the growing importance of fortifying our digital defenses against cyber threats. In an era marked by ransomware attacks and malicious breaches, businesses must prioritize comprehensive backup and archive strategies to ensure continuity and resilience. By adopting proactive cybersecurity measures and staying vigilant against emerging threats, organizations can navigate the digital landscape with confidence and integrity.” 

Mark Lewis, Head of Product Marketing at Zadara

“Backup is a well-known and well-tested strategy, yet solutions that worked yesterday are not always the solutions we require for tomorrow. Backup is not so much a destination, but an ever-evolving journey.

Similarly, data growth is nothing new, but the volume and rate of growth continue. Coupled with the ever-increasing complexity of IT environments and data sovereignty challenges, the backup goalposts keep moving. We continue to see cybersecurity threats like ransomware loom large while increasing the localization of new regulatory compliance standards requires a multi-faceted approach.

To navigate these obstacles, enterprises must invest in robust backup solutions, streamline processes, and foster a culture of continual learning, understanding and development.  Adaptation is key in safeguarding vital organizational data assets.”

Jim McGann, VP of Strategic Partnerships at Index Engines

“Backups play a vital role in minimizing downtime and ensuring business continuity in the event of a disaster. When disruptions occur, having backup systems in place allows businesses to quickly recover and resume operations with minimal disruption.  

But on World Backup Day, we must take a moment and make sure backup strategies go beyond disaster recovery and include cyber recovery events. Cybercriminals target critical enterprise data with the goal of crippling an organization.  Without a cyber resiliency strategy that validates the integrity of data, backups cannot be relied on to recover from a ransomware attack.   

 Ensuring the integrity of backup data is critical when faced with a cyberattack. Backup needs to evolve to support comprehensive scanning of files and databases to ensure it is clean from corruption and reliable when a restoration is required.  Adding this layer of resiliency, organizations can detect corruption sooner and, in the event of an attack, these verified backups serve as your first point of recovery.”

Nitin Kachhwaha, Director of Product Management at Western Digital

“If it’s important to you, like cherished family photos and videos, back it up. There are so many things that can happen to your digital files, so having a practical 3-2-1 backup strategy in place is essential to offering peace of mind and preserving your files for the future.”

Niel Pandya, APAC & Japan CTO at OpenText Cybersecurity

“Many aspects influence backup and recovery strategies, including understanding data, IT visibility, and awareness of business costs during downtime. Recently, while assisting an APAC client, we encountered challenges with their backup tool due to incomplete system scoping and inefficient usage. Manual checks on 200 systems underscored the need for prioritization and automation. It’s crucial to prioritize critical systems for backup and recovery, aligning with the business’s recovery time objectives. Notably, a major bank in Singapore faced penalties due to system outages, underscoring the significance of system availability. Various threats, such as ransomware attacks and natural disasters, highlight the need for preparedness in data recovery. Understanding data sensitivity aids in implementing appropriate backup measures, including data discovery to reduce the data footprint, comply with regulations, and expedite backups and restores.”

Greg Clark, Director at OpenText Cybersecurity

Kevin Cole, Director, Product and Technical Marketing, Data Protection at Zerto, an HPE Company

“World Backup Day is a welcome chance to remind ourselves of the importance of protecting our data and ensuring its availability. As the old saying goes: the best time to put in place a modern data protection strategy was yesterday; the second-best time is today.  

However, for most people there’s a simple reality: backup is boring. It doesn’t get the same hype as the latest trends in IT, whether artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, or Web 3.0. It can be hard to get attention for a computing practice that dates many decades.  

Yet backup remains more relevant than ever thanks to the explosive growth in data, distributed from edge to cloud, and an ever-evolving cyber threat landscape. Backup is still one of the foundational pillars in data protection alongside disaster recovery, archive, and cyber recovery. This World Backup Day, make it a priority to double-check your backup plans and ensure end-to-end protection across the data lifecycle. It may not have the headline-grabbing power of IT’s latest bleeding edge innovations, but backup is one of the most critical tools in any organization’s efforts to minimize data loss and take control of the data deluge.”

Or Shoshani, Co-Founder and CEO at Stream.Security

“With the cloud more at risk than ever, traditional and modern security methods are paramount to protecting your cloud infrastructure. Running our infrastructure on the cloud allows us to be more agile, but we must find ways to ensure data isn’t compromised or encrypted by threat actors. If it is, backing up data is critical to ensuring a fast recovery.  

We live in an era where breaches are inevitable, and it’s crucial to have robust response strategies and straightforward recovery methods for compromised cloud environments. We’ve developed various strategies with backup recovery playing a key role, to mitigate attacks and shorten the mean time to remediation, ensuring business continuity. 

With the option to backup data to multiple locations on-prem and in different cloud service providers, you can ensure the recovery of your data is available in case your cloud is compromised. This World Backup Day, ensure your storage locations are updated with the latest security measures, and back up your data to independent environments.” 

Candida Valois, Field CTO at Scality

“Backups are becoming a popular target for cybercriminals as they’ve learned that an organization is more likely to pay a ransom if their backup data has been compromised. Reports show 93 percent of attacks target backup repositories with a 68 percent success rate. And in 75 percent of these events, cybercriminals succeed in debilitating their victims’ ability to recover. Organizations can no longer just back up their data, they also must have the tools that ensure their backup solutions are protected.  Immutable storage will continue to emerge as a vital solution to protect those backups, cementing its position as a must-have capability within an organization’s security toolkit.

However, organizations will begin to understand that not all immutable storage is equal, with some leaving windows of exposure. To strengthen their security postures, we’ll see more organizations take a closer look at their immutable storage solutions to determine if they are truly immutable. We’ll also see organizations begin to understand the five key areas that constitute “true immutable storage” and include no deletes or overwriting ability, instant data store lockdown, configurable retention policies, support for S3 Object Locking APIs, and compliance mode to prevent immutability configuration changes.”

Gaidar Magdanurov, President at Acronis

“More and more people rely on storing their important personal and work data in the cloud and use file-sharing services like OneDrive for that. While those services provide a convenient way to share and access files, they were designed for something other than backup, and having a reliable backup is still important. Files in the cloud can be deleted and modified—accidentally, with malicious intent, or by malware infecting one of your devices. You can be temporarily or permanently locked out of your account, or a malicious actor can take over the account and destroy your data. Thus, having a secondary copy is important for everybody, even if you have everything synced in the Cloud.

Another important backup-related topic to consider is having a copy of your data that is not compromised. In the world of AI, AI uses data to learn and produce results, assisting people based on data and modifying data will lead to incorrect results. So this results in the chance for malicious actors to change your data to influence AI-assisted decisions. Another issue is that cyber-attacks happen, and, sometimes, successfully. Having a copy of your data will help you understand what has happened and which files were modified, and you may use the backup copy for investigation if needed.

In our increasingly interconnected world, we depend on data more and more. Data has become more valuable than any other asset that we have. Therefore, as we insure our physical assets, insurance for data is needed. Backup is like life insurance – the insurance that we don’t want to use, yet we have to have it in case we need it.”

Tim Sherbak, Enterprise Products and Solutions at Quantum

“Backing up data has been a necessity for decades for organizations to keep their data safe and recoverable. Now that AI has burst onto the scene, especially in the last year, the data organizations are accumulating – and increasingly storing forever – holds the potential for far greater value than ever before. Training an AI model to complete a task successfully relies on the quantity, quality, and variety of the data given as input. The more robust the dataset, the better the model will be able to detect specific patterns of interest and generate meaningful content.

Many organizations look for publicly available data, pulled from the internet, to train their AI models. While this is certainly an option, organizations that have access to a wide variety of their own data – rather than data found online – have a critical advantage over their competitors. It is not only specific to their needs, but the data also uniquely influences their AI outcomes. This is highly desirable and leads organizations to retain more and more over the long haul.

Organizations need to be confident that they can restore their data in the event of a cyber-attack or natural disaster. Having a rock-solid data protection strategy and a tried and tested disaster recovery plan are essential. With increasing regulations and corporate recognition of inherent risk around the use of AI, retaining model training and input data is also non-negotiable for documenting solutions, explaining the models and their outcomes, complying with internal policies and mitigating legal risks. Massive data growth and its required retention will drive the need for new levels of cost efficiency and accessibility in our data protection solutions. Emerging high-performance solid-state flash backup storage targets will become mainstream along with automated, software defined tape solutions for massive scale, low cost, and simple operations to effectively reuse and retain these valuable data assets for decades to come.”

Stephen Gatchell, Advisory Director at BigID

“Data backup strategies must be inclusive across security, privacy and data perspectives to ensure data breach recovery, regulatory compliance, and business continuity. Understanding the value of critical data, time it takes to restore that data supporting business processes, and a clearly defined, easily understood and transparent management of customer and personal data should all be a focal point of data backup strategies.”

Amitabh Sinha, CEO and Co-Founder at Workspot

Roger Brulotte, CEO at Leaseweb Canada

“In today’s digital age, deploying infrastructure without robust backup protocols is a risky gamble. A staggering two-thirds of IT experts surveyed voiced concern over the ever-widening gap between exploding data growth and their organization’s ability to secure it. As data volumes surge, organizations need to recognize that data is an asset that demands adequate protection against various threats, including external attacks, hardware failures, and internal security vulnerabilities.  

Investing in comprehensive backup solutions is more than simply a precaution; it is a necessary step in ensuring the continuity and integrity of corporate operations. Organizations can minimize risks, increase resilience, and ensure the long-term sustainability of their businesses by prioritizing backup strategies and implementing effective data protection policies. In an era of increasing data breaches and cyber threats, proactive steps to secure infrastructure through backup solutions are crucial for mitigating future calamities and guaranteeing business continuity.” 

Ken Claffey, CEO at Panasas

“World Backup Day serves as a timely reminder that traditional Backup/Recovery and Disaster Recovery strategies are no longer viable for Petascale workloads. As High-Performance Computing (HPC) takes center stage in solving complex problems across diverse sectors like manufacturing, healthcare, and finance, technology and user expectations have evolved. The rapid increase in Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads also has increased the pressure on HPC computing infrastructure.  

A key part of the answer lies in the adoption of parallel file systems, built on software that allows simultaneous data access with the fast movement of petabytes of data, significantly accelerates backup and restore times—a critical factor when dealing with massive data volumes. Scalability, ease of use, cost efficiency and reliability are paramount, but employing advanced data protection mechanisms, such as erasure coding, enhances data integrity and availability, and keeps data safe today and every day of the year.” 

Jim Fulton, Vice President at Forcepoint

“In a perfect world, the only threat to data security is a corrupted thumb drive. Reality is very much different, especially in a world increasingly reliant on remote work, cloud-based applications, and BYOD policies. World Backup Day is a reminder to prepare for the risks and implement robust data security measures to keep data employees safe.

One of the greatest risks associated with BYOD is data loss. When employees use their personal devices to access company resources, there is a risk that sensitive data such as customer data, financial information, and more belonging to the organization could be misused or stolen. Data loss is ultimately the outcome that organizations are fighting to avoid, but there are numerous types of risks that can lead to this result, including device infection, device loss or theft, shadow IT, unsecured Wi-Fi access, exposure of sensitive information, unauthorized access to sensitive data, and disgruntled employees. 

 Fortunately, there are techniques that allow organizations to mitigate the risks caused by BYOD devices in the workplace. These can include risk profiling, encryption, whitelisting and blacklisting, and finally AI-assisted behavioral analysis. Proactive approaches that prioritize data security first can help protect business information wherever it is stored and accessed by hybrid employees, including from BYOD and unmanaged devices.

World Backup Day is always a great reminder to keep BYOD policies up to date and prioritize data security everywhere within an organization. And remember, don’t forget that backing up is just part of what you have to do.”

Brian Spanswick, CIO and CISO at Cohesity

“On this World Backup Day, it’s good to emphasize the critical role that backups play in the overarching cyber resilience of any organization. Today data is not just an asset; it’s the backbone of our operations, decision-making processes, and our customers’ trust. Having backup data that enables aggressive RTO and RPO targets is a foundational step to cyber resilience, the ability to generate business outcomes while being impacted by a cyber event.

Cyber threats are evolving with alarming sophistication and frequency, making it more difficult to be confident that an organization can prevent a breach from occurring. A mature cyber resilience capability, where the business can recover core business processes from their backup data, allows us to maintain business continuity in the aftermath of an incident, mitigating the operational, financial, and reputational damages that can ensue. A well-architected backup strategy, therefore, is not just a technical necessity; it’s a strategic asset.

However, the responsibility of maintaining this resilience does not lie solely with the traditional IT Infrastructure team. It’s a joint effort that requires coordination between IT, InfoSec, and the business functions of the entire organization. From the executive leadership understanding and advocating for the importance of backups, to IT and InfoSec enabling aggressive recovery, to the business prioritizing the requirements and risk to the business.

The cost of unpreparedness can be staggering. Beyond the immediate financial implications, the long-term impact on customer trust and market position can be irreparable. Studies and incidents have repeatedly shown that the organizations that swiftly recover from cyber incidents have invested in robust backup and disaster recovery plans, coupled with a culture of security awareness.

Let this World Backup Day remind us of the essential role that backups play in our collective cyber resilience. It’s not just about having backups; it’s about ensuring they are secure, data integrity is maintained, and they are integrated into a broader, organization-wide commitment to cybersecurity. This builds a foundation that not only protects our data but, more critically, secures the operations of the business.”

Dale “Dr. Z” Zabriskie, Field CISO at Cohesity

“Years ago, when discussing the best methods for recovering from a data breach, a CIO of a major corporation told me he didn’t care HOW a system went down—he only cared about bringing it back up as quickly as possible. I cringed. While every CIO rightly abhors downtime, initiating recovery of an important, even critical, workload without a clear understanding of what took it down can result in far greater problems than the original failure.

This is especially true when dealing with security vulnerabilities. Failing to identify and rectify security breaches or intrusions could expose your system to further attacks, risking additional downtime and potentially compromising sensitive data.

Bad actors can infiltrate systems and lurk around, performing reconnaissance for quite a while. IBM’s 2023 Cost of a Data Breach Report shows the average time to identify a data breach is over 200 days! That means not only are the bad guys analyzing your network and defenses (or lack thereof), but your backup processes have created multiple copies of any malware that may have been installed on your systems. 

It’s what I call the “Burnt Marshmallow Syndrome”. Most environments have a hard, crusty exterior (firewalls, IPS, etc.), while the inside is very fluid and in constant flux. We worry so much about keeping the bad guys OUT that we lose sight of their potential activity within.

The key is to synergize the SecOps and infrastructure teams to enhance cyber resilience, creating a coherent strategy that strengthens the organization’s defense mechanisms against cyber threats and ensures swift recovery and restoration of normal operations following a security incident. Bringing these teams together includes:

1. Unified Risk Assessment and Management:

The journey begins with a unified risk assessment process, in which both SecOps and Infrastructure teams collaborate to identify potential vulnerabilities within the system architecture. This joint effort ensures a comprehensive understanding of the security landscape, which helps develop a prioritized risk management plan that addresses immediate threats and long-term infrastructure vulnerabilities.

2. Integrated Security and Infrastructure Architecture:

It is crucial to design an infrastructure that inherently supports security principles. This involves the SecOps team providing insights on security best practices and threat intelligence to inform the architecture of IT systems and networks managed by the Infrastructure team. The goal is to create a resilient infrastructure that meets operational requirements and minimizes security risks.

3. Continuous Monitoring and Incident Response:

Continuous monitoring of the IT environment is vital for early detection of potential threats. SecOps teams, equipped with advanced monitoring tools and analytics, work with Infrastructure teams to ensure the underlying systems support optimal monitoring capabilities. In the event of a security incident, a coordinated incident response strategy leverages the strengths of both teams to contain the threat, mitigate damage, and initiate recovery processes.

4. Joint Recovery and Restoration Efforts:

Recovering from a cyber incident requires a well-orchestrated effort between SecOps and Infrastructure teams. This includes restoring systems and data from backups, repairing compromised infrastructure, and applying security patches. Collaboration during this phase ensures that recovery efforts are swift and adhere to security best practices to prevent future incidents.

5. Cross-Team Training and Awareness:

Educating all team members about the latest cyber threats, security best practices, and response procedures is essential for maintaining a resilient posture. Joint training sessions encourage a shared understanding of security responsibilities and foster a culture of proactive cyber resilience across both teams.

6. Continuous Improvement Process:

Finally, both teams continuously improve, analyzing past incidents and current trends to refine their strategies. This involves regularly reviewing security policies, infrastructure configurations, and response plans to ensure they remain effective against evolving cyber threats.

While recovery always starts with the proper backup procedures, the synergy between SecOps and Infrastructure teams is pivotal in achieving and maintaining cyber resilience. By following these interdependent steps, organizations can defend against cyber threats more effectively and ensure a rapid return to normal operations after an incident. Regardless of how your system goes down!”

Kent Field, Director of Product Management at Quest

“This World Backup Day, it’s important to address how the rise of generative AI and increase in ransomware attacks are changing business risks, and the role of backup in ensuring resilience. Generative AI is only as good as the data powering it – and if that data is unreliable or corrupted, major financial and reputational consequences can ensue. Meanwhile, threat actors are using generative AI to launch ransomware attacks more often, taking advantage of vulnerabilities and poor data protection postures. On top of that, new regulations like the SEC cyber incident disclosure rule mean that businesses have to have a clear understanding of where their data sits and how to track what’s been exposed or lost in the event of a breach.

That makes creating a proactive risk management plan with data protection at the core more important than ever. Data, whether sitting isolated in a data center or powering an algorithm, must be vaulted with immutability and protected by cybersecurity best practices like encryption and MFA. In addition, organizations must have practices in place to identify and get control over shadow data.

Once the right controls are in place, enterprises must also make data protection a shared responsibility across the organization – not just the purview of the IT team. To ensure true resilience, IT, security, legal, operations and marketing teams alike all need to understand the importance of backing up their data in the right ways – and be held accountable to doing it.”

Sean Deuby, Principal Technologist at Semperis

“The ongoing threat of ransomware attacks highlights the importance of cyber resiliency on World Backup Day. As organizations face sophisticated threats growing in speed, size and accuracy, the need for robust recovery processes with reliable backups is greater than ever before. 

To significantly reduce recovery time and quickly resume normal operations, even after an attack, organizations need a dedicated Active Directory (AD) backup strategy. AD is used by 90 percent of businesses today as a fundamental system that both users and applications depend upon to function. But traditional backups that include AD most likely contain malware after an attack, making recovery time even greater. To quickly recover AD from a cyber disaster you need specialized, automated AD forest recovery that will return this identity system to a known secure and trusted state. Without AD-specific cyberattack recovery technology and processes, your business is at risk. AD-specific backups can speed up recovery and aid organizations in quickly returning to normal operations after a ransomware attack. What was once considered “nice to have” is now a “need to have” for organizations of all shapes and sizes around the globe.

I always recommend organizations take an “assume breach” mindset and encourage them to prepare now for the inevitable. When organizations are prepared to be resilient against cyberattacks, and understand which systems are most critical to their business, they can take steps to reduce their most glaring vulnerabilities, make their infrastructure sufficiently difficult to compromise and recover much faster from a compromise. Companies should also monitor for unauthorized changes occurring in their AD environment, which threat actors use in most attacks, and have real-time visibility to changes to elevated network accounts and groups.”

Andy Stone, CTO – Americas at Pure Storage

“Now and in the future, it’s especially important for organizations to double down on building resilience and agility across their organization – not only for data, but for the business overall. This requires future-proofing critical IT infrastructure and implementing a modern data protection strategy with backup and recovery in mind. However, there’s often a misconception that deploying backup technologies will remedy the impact of an attack. Effective recovery planning isn’t just about having a backup solution; it’s about architecting a layered approach that prioritizes rapid restoration and resilience. World Backup Day is a welcome reminder for organizations to re-evaluate their security approach, and invest in the right mix of reliable technologies and effective processes to safeguard data in a constantly evolving threat environment.”

Chris Sharp, Chief Technology Officer at Digital Realty

“Data centers play an integral role in data management, which involves both storage and security. Without it, users wouldn’t have the opportunity to back up their data or update their systems in the first place.

For data centers, successful data management is defined by four key components. But these lessons are important for IT teams to keep in mind as well.

Firstly, when choosing the right data storage technology, it’s important to weigh the advantages; does the priority lie in a more cost-effective solution, such as a traditional hard disk drive (HDD), or faster access speed, with a Solid-State Drive (SSD). Be sure to find the right storage technology by evaluating budgets alongside performance and connectivity needs. 

Proper organization of structured versus unstructured data is crucial as cloud environments grow. This becomes an increasingly difficult task as complexity and storage needs increase. Align with IT leaders to have the right strategy in place for efficiency and reduced redundancies.   

Minimizing data disruptions is tightly tied to robust recovery strategies. Prevention mitigation is necessary throughout each component of data management. In the event of an incident, IT teams should be armed with a rapid recovery response to protect data availability. 

And lastly, be conscious of data lifecycles. From its creation to eventual deletion or exile to a resting place in the archives, data requires upkeep to optimize storage costs and data integrity.  

In the spirit of data caretaking, spend a few minutes deleting duplicate data to open up more storage capacities – this practice, in turn, optimizes data center resources.”

Dan Schiappa, Chief Product Officer at Arctic Wolf

“No matter what environment your organization has in place, effective tools and strategies for backing up data are now more crucial than ever before. Ransomware groups have risen to new heights over the past year – many evolving their negotiation process on top of higher ransom payment requests.   

With the evolution of these negotiation processes, it’s more important now than ever before to get systems back online quickly and efficiently in the event of a breach. In the last year, recent reporting shows that 71 percent of the organizations who experienced a ransomware attack were able to restore their environments at least partially leveraging the backups they had in place. While this does not immediately solve the challenges that come with a ransomware attack, it does often buy a company precious time after an attack.    

As we look toward the rest of 2024, we must recognize the importance of maintaining strong backup practices like proper data storage and testing the effectiveness of your organization’s backup recovery – rather than focusing solely on preventative measures against ransomware gangs. 

For some background, World Backup Day is a commemorative date celebrated annually by the backup industry and tech industry all over the world. It highlights the importance of protecting data and keeping systems and computers secure. Let me know if you are interested in using Dan’s commentary or if I can set up a briefing.”

Colin Presly, Head of Customer Success at Seagate Technology

“Amidst the AI boom and continued scrutiny on sustainability, it’s important that companies’ data storage strategies set them up for success as they navigate evolving data needs. In the commentary below, Colin Presly explores these topics and offers advice for companies:  

• AI increased demand for data storage and importance of backups. Data is the fuel that drives AI because it allows businesses to render insights and value from previously untapped information – the data they already have. Data backups are not just an IT and security imperative. They are critical for business operations. With AI raising the stakes, companies must reevaluate where and how they store their data to ensure it is available when they need it and to minimize cost and energy consumption.
• Sustainability of storage solutions is an increasingly important consideration for data backup. The International Energy Agency projects that data centers’ electricity consumption in 2026 will reach 1,000 terawatts, which is roughly Japan’s total electricity consumption today. New areally dense solutions can help enterprises and data centers scale and drive down costs, while keeping sustainability as a top priority. HAMR-enabled hard drives can improve areal density at more efficient power consumption levels.   
• Commit to refurbished and recycled drives. The Circular Drive Initiative, a partnership of global digital storage leaders, is helping to make data storage more sustainable by promoting circularity. This means refurbishing, repairing, reusing, and recycling to limit the e-waste entering the environment. As sustainability continues to be a top priority for organizations and key stakeholders, enterprise leaders should choose storage solutions that are part of the circular economy. 
• Amidst the AI boom and focus on sustainability, the 3-2-1 rule still applies. Most experts recommend a 3-2-1 backup rule, meaning keeping 3 versions of your data (the original and copies) on 2 different media with 1 copy offsite for disaster recovery. Organizations should choose cost-optimizing storage solutions to preserve their business data.”