Mar 31, 2025

COMMENTS: World Backup Day In light of World Backup Day- the commentary below from: • Matt Aldridge, Senior Principal Solutions Consultant at OpenText Cybersecurity discussing the need for businesses to evolve their backup strategies in response to AI driven cyber threats, specifically ransomware. • Pierre Noel, Field CISO EMEA at Expel discussing the importance of backup hygiene, particularly immutable backups, as protection against ransomware attacks. Matt Aldridge, Senior Principal Solutions Consultant at OpenText Cybersecurity says: Data backups have long been a cornerstone of cybersecurity, ensuring businesses remain resilient in the face of cyber threats and disasters. However, with AI accelerating both data creation and cyber threats, backup strategies must evolve. World Backup Day is the perfect opportunity for organisations to reassess their data protection approach, not just backing up data, but ensuring they are safeguarding the right data in a way that enhances security and compliance. Cyberattacks, particularly ransomware, continue to rise. OpenText Cybersecurity’s 2024 Ransomware Survey found that 69% of businesses that experience ransomware attacks saw an uptick in phishing, while 55% believe AI driven cyber threats put them at greater risk. If tech giants are being successfully targeted, no organisation- regardless of size or sector, is immune. This makes proactive protection critical. Regular education and phishing simulations should be standard practice, ensuring employees remain the first line of defence. Furthermore, ransomware attacks are increasingly originating from supply chain partners- 62% of affected organisations reported such incidents in the past year. As a result, 90% of these businesses are enhancing collaboration with software suppliers to strengthen their security practices. This underscores the need for organisations to go beyond internal defences and consider the broader ecosystem when evaluating their backup and cybersecurity strategies. Ultimately, data protection mustn’t be a box-ticking exercise. It must be ingrained into every aspect of the business, with employee awareness serving as a first line of critical defence. By regularly testing and rehearsing cyberattack scenarios, organisations can ensure that when a data breach does occur, they can isolate and contain threats with precision. So this World Backup Day, let us move beyond simple data preservation and embrace a more strategic approach- one that not only safeguards backups but actively reduces risk, enhances privacy, and builds true cyber resilience. Pierre Noel, Field CISO EMEA at Expel says: "Good old backup hygiene is (and has always been) a key element to your security. Nowadays, backups serve as a strong layer of protection against ransomware, the most prominent cybersecurity attack-type. Specifically, immutable backups: a backup that cannot be overwritten by the ransomware. Why? One of the issues with ransomware attacks is that when an attacker successfully infiltrates your environment, you find yourself with a large number of your computers totally encrypted, but not knowing which ones contain the critical information that might necessitate paying the attackers’ ransom. The solution is to enforce a policy—with adequate technologies—to prevent users from saving documents locally to their device. Instead, opt for a shared drive. This way, you know none of your “ransomed” computers hold any sensitive information and thus can safely be wiped clean without further risk. Of course, the best defence against ransomware is to stop the attackers before they get into your environment—and that involves practicing good security hygiene, and the visibility to spot threats before they become successful attacks. But having backups in place is an important component of a strong security strategy to ensure you’re protected even when the worst case does happen—because it’s no longer a matter of if, but when." —