Recovery Readiness Becomes New Standard for Cyber Resilience Amidst Evolving Ransomware Threats

Ransomware Targets Backups

A recent ransomware report indicates that more than 90% of ransomware attacks now attempt to delete or tamper with backups before deploying their main payload. This tactic is often successful, with nearly 60% of attacks that target backups achieving their goal. This trend elevates outages from IT issues to enterprise-wide risks.

Distinction Between Backup and Recovery

Many organizations mistakenly equate backup with recovery. While backup creates duplicate data copies, recovery ensures operations can be restored quickly after an attack or system failure. This distinction is critical for avoiding prolonged downtime, lost revenue, and damage to customer trust.

Flawed Assumptions Exploited by Attackers

Attackers exploit the flawed assumption that backups alone constitute a disaster recovery strategy. Threat groups frequently tamper with backups first before breaching other parts of the IT infrastructure. This means organizations treating backups as their sole disaster recovery plan are only protecting data, not the entire business.

Modern Resilience Strategies

Closing the gap between backup and recovery demands modern resilience strategies. These strategies integrate secure, immutable backups with rapid recovery capabilities. Platforms like Datto exemplify this approach, which is necessary to counter sophisticated ransomware tactics.

Identity-Based Attacks in Hybrid Environments

The shift to hybrid environments, driven by rising on-prem hardware costs, has expanded the identity attack surface. Attackers no longer need to bypass firewalls to access business applications; they log in, often bypassing MFA and hijacking live sessions. Approximately four out of five ransomware attacks now begin with identity-based approaches.