62% Businesses Still Using Traditional Backup Tools, Finds Zerto Research

The current COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated how cybercriminals are exploiting the anxiety, panic and fear generated on a global basis. In the swift transition to remote work, businesses were unable to implement robust security protocols and measures in time. Third-party communication channels like video conferencing and online meeting whiteboards are not vetted thoroughly for security vulnerabilities before employees use them for doing business, and often there is no continuity/disaster recovery (BC/DR) capabilities or plans in place.

AccordingOpens a new window to Katie McMillan, Senior Information Security Consultant & Information Security Manager at Security Risk Management Ltd, “Those with high-level business continuity plans in place will be putting elements of these into action. For many, however, it is time to dust off what plans they have and update them to take account of the current threats.”

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For example, the giant JP Morgan is updating their business continuity plans as per a report by BloombergOpens a new window , “JPMorgan’s leaders have been double-checking contingency plans to be sure the firm can continue to serve customers in the event of widespread disruptions. For the consumer bank, testing the telecommuting policy on a sampling of employees across businesses can ensure kinks are worked out before the plan needs to be rolled out more broadly in the event of a pandemic.”

In this context, a new research study called ‘A Cybercriminal’s Dream’, published and commissioned by Zerto, found that 62% of self-identified users are still using conventional or standard backup tools, while 56% are in the midst of re-evaluating their cyber resilience, backup and disaster recovery tools and strategies. But that’s not all – security vulnerabilities and downtime also lead to data breaches and high financial and reputational costs for organizations. Some other findings from Zerto’s research include:

• 64% of respondents only examine their BC/DR capabilities and recoverability on an annual or quarterly basis. Firms need to frequently test their BC/DR plans to help recover quickly from a cyberattack like ransomware and develop robust IT resilience.

• 17% of enterprises said they leave a gap of more than 24 hours between backup copies – demonstrating how businesses have availability gaps that prevent them from securely safeguarding against rising cyber threats.

“The combination of infrequent data backups and lapsed BC/DR capability testing within an organization is a cybercriminal’s dream,” explainsOpens a new window Caroline Seymour, Vice President, Product Marketing at Zerto. “If a company suffers a ransomware attack and cannot recover quickly, then the cybercriminal has full control of the situation. The company must either pay or accept that it is going to be offline for a significant amount of time. By contrast, if an organization has deployed a Continuous Data Protection (CDP) solution, it can almost instantaneously recover to a point-in-time before the attack—and remove any leverage that cybercriminals may have.”

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The State of IT Resilience Report Opens a new window released by IDC in 2019 similarly found that 37% of respondents experienced a direct loss of revenue due to ransomware or other cyber threats, 61% suffered company reputation damage, and 26% pointed out a permanent loss of customers. Additionally, nearly 50% of respondents suffered negative consequences from cyber threats, like unrecoverable data, within the last 3 years.

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