Ransomware is widely considered a critical and existential threat to the viability of any business. Given the high frequency of attacks and the impacts of successful ones such as data and infrastructure loss, many organizations are left with damages that have an effect well beyond IT. Attackers often go beyond valuable data assets by undermining key infrastructure components and exposing significant gaps, including those in the backup infrastructure itself. IT leaders must understand that the nature of the threat goes well beyond just data and focus on protecting and further leveraging their backup and recovery infrastructure to remove risk and minimize business impact through advanced capabilities. Overall, most organizations should consider key features to improve their cyber-resilience as they continue to battle ransomware and other cyber-risks.

In order to gain further insight into these trends, TechTarget’s Enterprise Strategy Group surveyed 600 IT and cybersecurity professionals at organizations in North America (US and Canada) and Western Europe (UK, France, and Germany) personally involved with the technology and processes associated with protecting against ransomware. The research results were further used to create a multidimensional model to evaluate organizations’ progress over the last 18 months in preparing for these threats and identifying best practices.