A staggering 59 percent of organizations were victims of a ransomware attack over a recent 12-month period. According to Microsoft, cyber threats targeting SaaS surged, with 7,000 password attacks blocked per second (just in Entra ID) and phishing attempts up by 58 percent. SaaS attacks are increasing as hackers figure out how to evade detection through legitimate usage patterns. Put simply, your SaaS data is at risk from ransomware and many other threats.

SaaS Data Protection Misconceptions

Brent Ellis, Senior Analyst at Forrester, says, “Generally, people expect their SaaS providers to back up their data, protect it, and secure it. But as we’ve seen, that is not always the case. And when you think about SaaS, it’s not just one platform, it’s not just your data center, it’s not just your cloud environment. It’s a variety of different platforms that do different things for your environment. And each has a different way of protecting it and keeping it safe.”

The Solution: Comprehensive Data Management and Risk Mitigation

Your data is scattered across numerous locations, each with its risks. Here is a breakdown of where your data likely resides, the associated risks, and recommended protection strategies. 

Data Centers

Risks: Physical damage and theft

Risk protection strategies: Secure facilities, regular backups

Cloud

Risks: Downtime and data breaches

Risk protection strategies: Multi-cloud strategy, encryption, on-prem storage

Silos

Risks: Access control issues

Risk protection strategies: Centralized management, regular audits, RBAC

Desktops

Risks: Loss, malware, bad actors

Risk protection strategies: Endpoint protection, local backups

Mobile Devices

Risks: Theft, data leaks

Risk protection strategies: Mobile device management (MDM), encryption

SaaS Environments

Risks: API exploits, outages

Risk protection strategies: Third-party backups, continuous monitoring

The Evolution of Disaster Recovery

With so many threats to your data, you must shift from traditional disaster recovery strategies and focus on technology resilience. A resilient environment ensures your data is protected even during a disruption, such as a ransomware attack, hardware failure, or other disaster.

The key steps in building technology resilience include:

Map Data Locations and Risks

Know where your data resides and identify vulnerabilities at every location so you can tailor your risk mitigation strategies to meet your requirements. To do this effectively, perform risk assessment regularly (at least once a year).

Implement Robust Backups

Securely back up all critical data using immutable backups to ensure malware can’t alter them. Test backups before restoring the data to avoid potential reinfection. 

Test Recovery Plans Regularly

Verify that your recovery strategies are effective, up-to-date, and capable of meeting your business continuity requirements.

SaaS environments operate under the shared responsibility model, which, in Microsoft’s case, clearly states, “Regardless of the type of deployment, you always retain the following responsibilities: Data, Endpoints, Account, and Access Management.” This makes third-party SaaS backups a vital part of your resilience strategy.

Three Critical Components of Data Resilience

Ensuring your data is protected and resilient requires the following:

Isolated Recovery Environments

Create a dedicated environment for secure data recovery, separated from your primary environment.

Immutable Backups

Ensure your backups are tamper-proof by keeping them in immutable storage, making them immune to malware and ransomware.

Continuous Scanning

Regularly scan backups to detect threats early and maintain recovery integrity.

How Arcserve Strengthens Your Resilience Strategy

Arcserve SaaS Backup is a comprehensive cloud-native, cloud-to-cloud backup solution designed to protect your data hosted in SaaS application clouds such as Microsoft Office 365, Entra ID, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Salesforce, Google Workspace, and Zendesk.

It’s secure, scalable, and available, with data in transit and at rest encrypted with a default 30-day delete retention. Four copies of the backup data in two different data centers within the same region guarantee data sovereignty and redundancy.

Arcserve SaaS Backup ensures compliance by maintaining ISO/IEC 27001:2013 and ISAE 3402-II certifications, as well as compliance with major regulations like HIPAA and GDPR for all of our data centers.

With a single pane of glass for management and a fast and intuitive interface, including multi-tenant and role-based access control (RBAC), you can count on visibility into and control over your protected data.

To learn more about Arcserve SaaS Backup, request a demo or check out our 30-day free trial offer.

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