The Myth: Backups Equal Protection
A persistent assumption in enterprise IT holds that maintaining regular backups is sufficient preparation for ransomware and other catastrophic disruptions. A BleepingComputer analysis published today, drawing on Datto's business continuity research, challenges that assumption directly: backups protect data, but they do not keep a business operational during an extended outage. 1The backup myth that is putting businesses at risk
The distinction is not academic. When ransomware encrypts an organization's systems, the damage isn't limited to data loss. Operations halt. Revenue stops. Customers can't be served. And restoring from backup-even when it works-takes time that most businesses cannot afford.
The Numbers Behind the Gap
The scale of the problem is visible in recent industry data. According to Sophos's State of Ransomware 2025 report, only 54% of organizations with encrypted data used backups for recovery-the lowest backup recovery rate in six years. 2Sophos State of Ransomware 2025 Report Nearly half (49%) paid the ransom instead. 2Sophos State of Ransomware 2025 Report
Even when backups work, the recovery timeline is punishing. The average ransomware incident now results in approximately 24 days of downtime, according to Statista data cited by Varonis. 3Ransomware Recovery Statistics 2026 — Statista via Varonis Fewer than 7% of companies recover within a single day, and over one-third take more than a month to fully restore operations. 3Ransomware Recovery Statistics 2026 — Statista via Varonis
The financial toll compounds quickly. Downtime costs average approximately $356,000 per day for mid-market companies, excluding ransom payments and legal fees. 3Ransomware Recovery Statistics 2026 — Statista via Varonis That figure means a three-week outage can easily exceed $7 million before a single ransom dollar is considered.
Why Backups Alone Fail
Backups address a specific problem-data loss-but not the broader operational disruption that defines modern ransomware attacks. A backup sitting in cold storage or even on a replicated cloud volume does not restore real-time business processes. Critical applications, communication systems, customer-facing services, and internal workflows all require more than file recovery to come back online.
This is where business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) planning diverges from backup strategy. BCDR encompasses failover systems, runbook automation, predefined recovery priorities, and tested procedures that allow critical operations to continue-or resume within minutes to hours-during an active incident. 1The backup myth that is putting businesses at risk A backup is a component of BCDR. It is not a substitute for it.
The Sophos data suggests that backup-only strategies are already eroding. The average cost of ransomware recovery dropped from $2.73 million in 2024 to $1.53 million in 2025, a decline partly attributed to organizations with mature continuity plans recovering faster. 2Sophos State of Ransomware 2025 Report But the simultaneous drop in backup usage signals a troubling trend: organizations that lack tested BCDR processes are increasingly opting to pay the ransom rather than attempt a slow, uncertain restoration.
What Organizations Should Reassess
The core takeaway is straightforward: a backup policy is not a continuity strategy. Organizations should evaluate whether their current plans address operational resilience-not just data recoverability. That means testing failover processes under realistic conditions, defining recovery time objectives (RTOs) that reflect actual business tolerance, and ensuring that backup infrastructure itself is isolated from the network segments most likely to be compromised.
As ransomware operators continue to target backup repositories directly-a tactic now well-documented across threat intelligence reports-the gap between organizations with tested BCDR and those relying on backup alone will only widen.
Bild: Woliul Hasan / Unsplash
