Apricorn has published results from its latest annual survey of UK IT security decision makers, revealing serious gaps in organizational backup strategies despite a growing reliance on recovery processes.
Almost a third (31%) of respondents who had to recover from a backup were unable to make a full recovery, either retrieving only some of their data and documents, or failing entirely due to inadequate processes.
“It is concerning that nearly a third of organizations cannot fully recover from a backup,” said Jon Fielding, Managing Director, EMEA, Apricorn. “Backups are the safety net, but if the net is full of holes, you are still going to hit the ground hard. Recovery is critical in a breach scenario. We all know that breaches are almost inevitable, so being able to recover from a breach should be as high on the boardroom agenda as being able to prepare for one. Full recovery is only possible when backups are both comprehensive and regularly tested.”
The survey also highlights that backup systems themselves are increasingly under attack. 18% of organizations reported an attack on their backups as the main cause of a data breach (a newly measured threat in this year’s survey), underscoring the importance of securing backup repositories alongside primary data stores.
Methodology
The research was conducted by Censuswide among 200 IT security decision makers across the UK in May 2025.
