StorageCraft Global Research: Disaster and Ransomware Recovery

In this final post in our series summarizing a global research study commissioned by StorageCraft, we’ll look at how well-prepared IT decision-makers (ITDMs) feel they are should their company become a victim of a data disaster. To get a complete picture of our study results check out our previous posts where we share ITDMs’ views on fast data growth, recovery planning, and public clouds.

Most CEOs Aren’t Interested in Data Recovery

What’s the value of data? Deloitte says that’s a hard question to answer in a recent Wall Street Journal article. But every company knows how much it depends on its data, even if it can’t assign a number to the value. That’s why it may be surprising that our ITDM survey respondents said that nearly two-thirds of their CEOs didn’t want to know the details about data recovery. We think data is too important for CEOs to ignore. That’s why we applaud the 32 percent of CEOs who do want to know specific details about recovery plans. And we offer a standing ovation to the four percent who personally track metrics to ensure their security plans are rock solid.

Confidence in Recovery Plans Is High (But Not for Everyone)

More than two-thirds of our ITDM respondents said they are confident in their recovery plan should they fall victim to a ransomware attack. Again, we applaud these companies, as they have clearly recognized the cost of these attacks, which MSSP Alert projects to total more than $1.4 billion in 2020. Those who lack confidence in their ability to recover from a ransomware attack—a jaw-dropping 32 percent—fall into three categories:

• 15% say they would simply lose their data
• 11% have no idea if they could recover
• 6% would have no choice but to pay

If your company falls into any of these categories you need to take action now. Start by putting a backup and disaster recovery plan in place. You’ll find a checklist that can serve as your starting point on our blog, here. To help you understand your options and choose the right solution, you may also want to schedule a live demo with a StorageCraft engineer. They can answer all of your questions, and help you move toward to sharing the same level of confidence that the majority of our ITDM respondents enjoy.

The Skills Are There, but Not the Budget

Thirty-five percent of our ITDM respondents said they have both the skills and the budget to adequately manage and recover from a data failure, be it a malicious attack, natural disaster, or accident. Again, hats off to these folks. They’re in good shape if they take a hit. Another 46 percent say they have the skills to manage and recover their data, but not the budget. That’s a big problem. If you don’t have the budget for the tools it takes to ensure recovery, those skills aren’t of much value. For these ITDMs, we recommend assembling the metrics that illustrate the costs to your own organization if there were a successful ransomware attack. Then use those numbers to fight for more budget. Ten percent of respondents said they have the budget to recover, but not the skills. For these ITDMs we suggest you consider disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) like StorageCraft Cloud Services and other StorageCraft products that make backup and recovery easy for businesses of all sizes. That leaves our final 9 percent of respondents—those without skills or budget. For these individuals, our advice doesn’t change, and we can only hope their circumstances do.

ITDMs Shared Challenges

The final questions we posed in our study were designed to help StorageCraft understand the shared problems ITDMs are facing so we can continue to develop better solutions. The chart below breaks down their perspective.What these data points tell us is that being in IT isn’t getting any easier. And putting effective solutions in place isn’t easy, either. That’s why we’re here. Visit the StorageCraft website to get started finding the right solution for backing up and recovering your data.