Four Data Protection Red Flags You Should Be Prepared for in 2023

By David Lenz, Vice President, Asia Pacific, Arcserve

Data is now the lifeblood of every organization. Without access to critical data and systems, your organization can’t keep up with your competition. If you’re a business or technology leader, you must stay up to date on the latest threats to your data and the tools you can use to protect it.

Here are four red flags to watch for as you address how your organization secures and manages its data in 2023 and beyond.

1. A Massive SaaS Outage Will Serve as a Wake-Up Call

We could see the first significant software-as-a-service (SaaS) outage in 2023. If that happens, every organization will quickly realize that data backup and recovery needs to be front and center. Companies worldwide increasingly rely on SaaS instead of running their own on-premises IT infrastructure. If a SaaS application suffers a major outage—as with Microsoft Teams earlier this year—you need to understand that most vendors guarantee their services but not the availability of your data. That’s on you, as outlined in the shared responsibility model.

The 3-2-1-1 data protection strategy says you should have three backup copies of our data on two different media, such as disk and tape, with one of those copies located offsite for disaster recovery. The final one in 3-2-1-1 stands for immutable object storage. Immutable object storage is a next-gen data security tool that continuously safeguards your data by taking a snapshot every 90 seconds. That guarantees you can quickly recover, even if a significant SaaS outage hits you.

2. Cost Cutting Will Do More Harm Than Good

With spiraling energy prices and runaway inflation, your company is likely looking at cost optimization in 2023. One area you can’t afford to cut back on is your data protection efforts. Even as you rethink your operational expenditures to address higher costs, you still need to invest in protecting, storing, and backing up your data.

Data protection may look like an easy place to trim your budget. But those savings could quickly be overshadowed by a single data breach. The most recent IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report found that the average cost of a breach is $4.35 million. In 2023, it will be essential to recognize the importance of your data protection efforts and make sure any budget cuts don’t impact business operations.

3. Security Budgets Must Be Allocated Wisely

Regardless of the extent of cyber and other threats to your data, some companies will do some belt-tightening in security. If you do, be aware that this is when the bad guys tend to pounce. Cyberthieves are always looking to exploit vulnerabilities, so a smart approach to budget allocation is in order.

If your company is like most, you invest in basics like firewalls, antivirus, and intrusion-detection solutions (IDS). But beware. Cybercriminals inevitably penetrate those defenses—at least once. You need to plan for that eventuality and allocate some of your security budget for solutions that help with data backup and recovery if a successful cyberattack strikes.

4. Scope 3 Emissions Reporting Will Become a Cloud Competitive Advantage

In many countries, big companies are asked to report their CO2 emissions and do their part to slow climate change. The problem is that there are no global standards for this reporting—companies are measuring their emissions in various ways, making it hard to track and compare performance. And most only report emissions that they directly produce, such as when offices are heated. These are called scope 1 and scope 2 emissions and are just a fraction of the global total.

Most emissions are in scope 3, produced by the activity of all the participants in a company’s supply chain—currently and in the future. Scope 3 emissions are massive, and they mostly go unreported. This blank spot makes it easy for companies to claim they’ll be net-zero businesses by 2050 because they don’t have to report all the CO2 their supply chains produce.

In 2023, the pressure will be on cloud companies to accurately track their scope 3 emissions or risk greenwashing—being called out for deceiving their customers into believing they are environmentally friendly when they aren’t. If your company wants to do its part, it makes sense to seek out partners that accurately report their scope 3 emissions and demonstrate that they are good corporate citizens.

Plan for Better Data Protection in 2023

In today’s ever-accelerating and ever-more unpredictable world, business challenges are getting harder to fully comprehend and solve. Data protection is one of these challenges. If your company commits to staying on top of trends while implementing the innovative tools and strategies you need to protect your data, you can move forward into 2023 with confidence.

For help choosing the right data protection solution for your business, choose an expert Arcserve technology partner. And see for yourself what our solutions can do with our demos on demand.