As IT environments develop extra advanced, IT professionals are going through unprecedented strain to safe business-critical information. With hybrid work the brand new customary and cloud adoption on the rise, information is more and more distributed throughout totally different environments, suppliers and places, increasing the assault floor for rising cyberthreats. Whereas the necessity for a powerful information safety technique has change into extra important than ever, organizations discover themselves caught in a tough balancing act. They’re struggling to handle the rising prices and complexities of enterprise continuity and catastrophe restoration (BCDR) whereas guaranteeing that their business-critical information stays safe and recoverable.
To assist IT groups and managed service suppliers (MSPs) perceive how their friends are navigating these challenges, the State of Backup and Restoration Report 2025 has gathered insights from greater than 3,000 IT professionals, safety consultants and directors worldwide. The report reveals how companies are tackling as we speak’s largest information safety challenges, the methods they’re adopting and the important gaps that would go away them weak to information loss and downtime.
So, the place do organizations stand? The survey signifies that the boldness in backup methods is declining, cloud adoption is outpacing information safety methods and restoration expectations usually do not match actuality. On this article, we’ll discover the important thing findings from the report to assist IT groups and MSPs keep ready for what comes subsequent. In the meantime, for full insights and actionable methods, you possibly can obtain the entire report now and see how your group compares.
The backup paradox: Important but more and more unreliable
Information backup and restoration needs to be a security internet for companies, however for a lot of, it has change into a supply of frustration, complexity and threat. The numbers inform a transparent story — backup inefficiencies are rising, IT groups are overburdened and safety vulnerabilities stay widespread. Let’s dive into the important thing findings.
Pattern #1: Information loss is now not a query of “if” however “when.”
9 in 10 organizations skilled operational downtime prior to now 12 months.
Pattern #2: Confidence in backup methods is declining.
Belief in backup options is slipping, leaving many companies questioning whether or not they can reliably get better from information loss.
- Solely 40% of IT groups really feel assured of their backup methods.
- About 30% fear their backup technique is insufficient, elevating issues about information safety and recoverability.
- Greater than half of organizations plan to modify backup suppliers, citing price, inefficiency and restricted catastrophe restoration capabilities as main ache factors.
Pattern #3: Backup administration is a time-consuming burden.
Managing backups is not simply advanced — it is draining IT assets. As information volumes develop, IT groups are spending extra time than ever sustaining backup methods, testing restoration processes and troubleshooting failures.
- IT groups now spend 10+ hours per week managing backups, including to operational pressure.
- The variety of companies spending greater than three hours weekly on backups jumped from 5% in 2022 to 23% in 2024, denoting a big rise in effort and time.
- Round 35% of organizations would not even know if backups have been skipped or missed, highlighting important gaps in monitoring and testing.
Pattern #4: Safety gaps are leaving backups uncovered.
Backup methods are purported to be the final line of protection towards cyberthreats. Nevertheless, many comprise critical safety flaws that put information in danger.
- About 25% of workloads lack insurance policies that restrict unauthorized entry to backups, leaving them weak to malicious assaults.
- There are various ranges of safety for credentials throughout companies. Solely 33% of companies use devoted password managers. Others depend on much less safe strategies like doc storage platforms or browser-based password instruments, introducing potential vulnerabilities.
The restoration hole: Why companies cannot bounce again quick sufficient
Having the backup of knowledge is one factor; recovering it rapidly and reliably is one other. IT groups face important hurdles in guaranteeing quick, seamless restoration when catastrophe strikes.
Pattern #1: Fast and dependable information restoration stays a serious problem in information safety.
The highest issues cited by IT groups with respect to information safety are prices, compliance necessities and the precise strategy of recovering information. Since IT groups spend hours managing and troubleshooting backup points, it leaves little time for testing and validating restoration processes, rising the danger of failure when it issues most.
Pattern #2: Backup and DR testing gaps go away companies weak.
A backup resolution is barely nearly as good as its capability to revive information, but testing stays inconsistent throughout organizations.
- Solely 15% of companies conduct day by day backup exams, that means most function with a stage of threat that would jeopardize restoration in a disaster.
- Catastrophe restoration (DR) testing goes past simply verifying backups — it entails assessing restoration places, timelines and effectiveness. Whereas round 20% of companies conduct DR exams weekly and one other 23% check month-to-month, the remainder both check irregularly or in no way, leaving them unprepared for real-world restoration situations.
Pattern #3: Most companies overestimate their restoration readiness.
The dearth of frequent testing is obvious when precise restoration occasions.
- Whereas near 60% of companies imagine they will get better in a day, solely 35% truly do.
- Alarmingly, greater than 10% of companies do not even know the way lengthy it could take to get better their business-critical SaaS information, if they may get better it in any respect.
- Amongst companies utilizing public cloud providers like Azure, virtually 90% depend on native information safety instruments, but greater than 60% of them lack true DR capabilities.
The cloud dilemma: Embracing development with out sacrificing safety
The cloud is now the spine of recent IT, powering all the things from infrastructure to collaboration. Companies are quickly adopting cloud and SaaS options to reinforce flexibility and scalability, however many are overlooking a important issue: information safety.
Pattern #1: Cloud adoption continues to surge.
The shift to cloud-hosted workloads is barely rising stronger, pushed by the necessity for agility and resilience.
- Greater than 50% of workloads at the moment are hosted within the cloud, with that quantity anticipated to achieve 61% inside two years.
Most organizations now leverage hybrid and multicloud methods to extend flexibility and keep away from reliance on a single supplier. Nevertheless, gaps in cloud and SaaS information safety stay, placing important enterprise info in danger. Notably, SaaS platforms now function the spine of day by day enterprise operations, however with out the correct backup methods, this information stays weak.
Pattern #2: Small and midsize companies (SMBs) desire Google Workspace, whereas enterprises favor Microsoft 365.
- Microsoft 365 dominates the market, with over 50% of organizations counting on it for collaboration and productiveness.
- Google Workspace (35%) stays a best choice as nicely, significantly amongst SMBs.
- Microsoft 365 Entra ID (31%) and Dynamics (30%) present that companies are additionally more and more adopting specialised Microsoft merchandise.
- Salesforce (25%) rounds out the highest 5.
Pattern #3: Price, workload compatibility, vendor lock-in and safety issues are the largest boundaries to cloud migration.
Whereas cloud adoption continues to speed up, companies nonetheless face main hurdles in guaranteeing a seamless transition and securing their information.
The teachings realized: What IT leaders should prioritize now
The State of Backup and Restoration Report 2025 reveals that important safety gaps stay whereas securing on-premises, cloud, endpoint and SaaS information. There’s a rising disconnect between backup investments and precise restoration confidence, with IT groups not sure whether or not they can restore information when it issues most. With no extra resilient method to information safety, companies threat extended downtime, drastic monetary losses and irreversible information breaches.
Have you ever thought of how a lot an outage may price your group per minute? In line with the IT Outages: 2024 Prices and Containment Report, the typical price of unplanned downtime is $14,056 per minute per group.
Let’s take a more in-depth have a look at the breakdown of downtime prices throughout totally different enterprise sizes.
Enterprise continuity will depend on quicker, extra resilient restoration. Nevertheless, many organizations aren’t as ready as they suppose. To attenuate downtime and monetary losses, IT leaders should rethink their method to BCDR. A contemporary BCDR technique goes past fundamental backup, incorporating multilayered safety, automation and hybrid cloud options to strengthen resilience and guarantee enterprise continuity towards as we speak’s refined cyberthreats.
Safety alone is not sufficient, although. With out common testing, organizations are left guessing whether or not their restoration plans will maintain up in an actual disaster. Extra frequent backup and catastrophe restoration testing ensures that restoration goals are met when it issues most. Automation performs a key function there. By automating testing, IT groups can repeatedly confirm their capability to revive information inside required timeframes — all with out disrupting the manufacturing atmosphere. This removes the handbook burden and gives actual insights into restoration readiness.
On the similar time, stronger safety controls are additionally important to defending backup environments from unauthorized entry. Virtually 94% of ransomware victims have their backups focused by attackers, which leaves them with no different selection however to pay the ransom to get again their entry. On that entrance, bettering credential administration and imposing stricter entry controls might help forestall malicious actors from accessing backup infrastructure.
Remaining ideas: The way forward for BCDR begins now
The IT panorama is altering, and with it, the dangers are escalating. As companies push additional into the cloud and rely extra on SaaS purposes, their backup and catastrophe restoration methods should evolve simply as rapidly. Cyberthreats are extra superior, downtime is costlier and organizations can now not afford to deal with backup as an afterthought. To maintain tempo with this new actuality, companies should reassess their method and strengthen their defenses towards the rising threats that would carry operations to a halt.
For IT groups and MSPs, the insights from the State of Backup and Restoration Report 2025 present a transparent roadmap to evaluate vulnerabilities and enhance resilience earlier than catastrophe strikes. Obtain the total report now to benchmark your technique, uncover important gaps, and construct a stronger, extra dependable BCDR plan for the long run.
