How confident are you in your data protection efforts?
If you’re not confident that your business’ data is safe in the event of a disaster, you’re not alone. Under half (40 per cent) of IT professionals are confident of their data protection efforts, according to Kaseya’s State of Backup and Recovery Report 2025.
Businesses are waiting until disaster to test their back-up systems
With only 10 per cent of businesses having experienced zero outages last year, many businesses only got to test their back-ups in a ‘trial by fire’ situation. Furthermore, only 15 per cent test their backups daily, with another 25 per cent testing weekly.
Disaster recovery tests were even less frequent, with only 11 per cent testing daily and 20 per cent testing weekly. A few businesses (12 per cent) admitted they tested their disaster recovery on an ad hoc basis or not at all.
“In today’s cyber landscape, it’s hard to be confident about any systems you’re using,” said Frank DeBenedetto, GTM General Manager, MSP Suite, Kaseya. “So much is out of your control, it’s not surprising that nearly a third of IT professionals have had nightmares about their backup. From human error to natural disasters to ransomware attacks, the only way to know your systems work is to test them repeatedly.”
It takes longer than you think to recover from a data disaster
When it comes to recovery times, 60 per cent of businesses believed they could recover in under a day; however, only 35 per cent could do so in reality. Approximately 40 per cent said they can recover lost SaaS data in hours, with others requiring days or weeks (35 per cent). A concerning eight per cent admitted they were unsure of their recovery time and two per cent didn’t believe they could recover any lost SaaS data. An overwhelming 40 per cent said they would need days or weeks to recover data from a public cloud, while eight per cent do not back up their public cloud data at all.
Why is this so difficult?
More than half of the businesses surveyed plan to switch their primary back-up solution but are finding major challenges in trying to do so.
Pricing is seen as one of the leading challenges, especially for cloud technology. Having multiple back-up tools, while also helpful for data recovery, is seen as a source of inefficiencies for 10 per cent of businesses.
For more on backup strategy, and to view advice tailored to small business, consult the Australian Signals Directorate website.
