With cyber threats and data breaches continually increasing, ensuring the safety and integrity of your business data is more critical than ever.
One of the best ways to do this is with immutable backups.
Often considered the gold standard of backups, immutable backups provide a powerful solution for protecting business data against ransomware, accidental deletion, and other security risks. These backups are resilient and reliable, and businesses of all sizes and sectors can benefit from their use.
What Are Immutable Backups?
Immutable backups are a type of data backup that cannot be altered, deleted, or overwritten during a specified retention period. This makes them a vital tool for data protection, as they provide an unchangeable snapshot of your business data.
Because hackers specifically target backup systems, this type of backup offers an extra safeguard as it’s stored either offsite in immutable storage or in the cloud. This means that even in the event of cyberattacks, such as ransomware or when a hacker deletes your backup files, your information remains safe and intact. Even if a hacker gains access to your backup console, they still cannot access, encrypt, or delete your immutable backup as they’re not in the same location.
Immutable Backup vs Traditional Backup
Traditional, or mutable, backups are the standard form of data protection. They are essentially copies of your data that can be overwritten, modified, or deleted at any time if a user has sufficient access privileges. While they do offer protection, their vulnerability lies in their flexibility—hackers or malicious users can alter or destroy them, so they require additional security layers to make them more secure. Additionally, while these backups can be used for data recovery, the data may have been compromised in an attack, so there is no guarantee that it has not been modified or deleted.
In contrast, immutable backups offer a higher level of security. Once data is backed up, it is locked and cannot be modified, even by a user with high-level privileges. This provides an additional layer of defense and makes data recovery more reliable. The data cannot be altered in any way, allowing for a seamless backup recovery process.
Benefits and Use Cases of Immutable Backups
With the U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technologies predicting the annual average cost of cybercrime will reach more than $23 trillion in 2027, data protection has never been more important. Immutable backups led the way as one of the most reliable options, and they offer the following benefits and uses:
Protection Against Ransomware: Immutable backups can’t be altered, ensuring that even if a business’s live data is compromised, an unaffected backup is still accessible. This means that if a hacker has stolen a company’s data and is demanding a ransom, there is no need to pay up, as the immutable backups can be used for a complete recovery.
Maintaining Data Integrity: These backups guarantee data integrity, making it possible to recover original files without alterations. This ensures no data loss occurs.
Accurate Data History: Maintaining an unalterable copy of your data allows you to monitor its progression over time. This is especially valuable in legal scenarios where proving data authenticity and integrity is essential. Immutable backups create a reliable audit trail, recording who accessed the data and when it was accessed and confirming that no changes were made.
Reduced Downtime: Because data recovery is quicker and more reliable, businesses can minimize downtime in the event of an attack or failure. The files in the immutable backups simply need to be restored, and business can resume as usual.
Compliance: Industries such as banking and finance, healthcare, government and telecommunications require businesses to retain immutable data for compliance reasons. Immutable backups can help to ensure regulatory adherence in these cases.
Why Are Immutable Backups Important?
Over 50% of MSPs agree that immutable backups are vitally important for ransomware protection
To determine what managed services providers (MSP) considered most important about immutable backups, we leveraged AI-driven audience profiling to synthesize insights from online opinions to a high statistical confidence level. Our data spanned a full year and had an audience of 132,277 MSP professionals.
The graph shows that MSPs consider immutable backups the most important for ransomware protection (50.6%), followed by cost efficiency (35.3%). Essentially, both the most important uses relate to costs, as ransomware payments hit a record $1.1 billion in 2023, and immutable backups can reduce storage costs by leveraging deduplication to eliminate redundant data and compression to shrink file sizes, optimizing storage utilization and saving money.
Long-term retention was less important for MSPs at 6%, and interestingly, scalability only garnered 5.6% engagement. Scalability relates to costs, too, as many immutable backup solutions cna scale as a business grows, but on its own, it’s clearly not as important. Disaster recovery was also low, at 2.5%, but when you consider that the point of immutable backups is to prevent disaster-related data loss and ensure data integrity, this low percentage highlights their effectiveness in mitigating such risks.
How Immutable Backups Work
Immutable backups are typically stored on dedicated hardware or in cloud storage that runs specialized software. The process of creating these backups involves creating a snapshot of data that is “locked” at a specific point in time. The software then ensures that no changes can be made to the backup for the duration of its retention period.
Depending on business needs, this retention period can range from days to months. If a business regularly updates its data, this time period will be shorter. However, if the data is relatively unchanged for a longer period, the retention time will be longer too.
Advanced encryption methods, such as AES-256, are also sometimes employed to ensure that immutable backups remain secure even in the event of a breach. This military-grade encryption protects data both at rest and in transit, making it nearly impossible for unauthorized parties to access or alter the backup.
Types of Immutable Backup Solutions
Immutable backup solutions essentially come in a few different types, depending on where the data is stored.
Cloud-Based Immutable Backups: These backups are stored in the cloud and allow businesses to create “write once, read many” (WORM) backups that can’t be altered. This ensures the data can only be read and not overwritten, making it permanent and tamper-proof. As they’re cloud-based, these backups can also be accessed from anywhere in the world anytime.
On-Premises or Local Immutable Backups: These solutions are hosted on physical devices such as an external hard drive, USB drive, network-attached storage (NAS), or a local server within the company’s own infrastructure, so they do have geographical limitations. They are ideal for businesses that prefer to manage their backups internally on-site or who operate on a smaller scale.
Hybrid Solutions: Combining cloud and on-premises backups, hybrid solutions offer flexibility for businesses that want to benefit from both types. They allow businesses to store critical data on-premises for faster access and control while utilizing the cloud for scalability and off-site protection. This ensures comprehensive data security and disaster recovery.
The backup type also includes what data is backed up and how often backups run.
Full backups: Backs up all selected data, including files, folders, and system configurations, as they exist at the time of the backup. While full backups require the most storage space and time to create, they offer the advantage of being straightforward to restore as all necessary data is contained in a single backup set.
Continuous backups: Continuously tracks and saves data changes in real-time or at frequent intervals, ensuring minimal data loss. These backups ensure minimal data loss and are ideal for environments requiring constant data availability, such as financial systems. Continuous backups provide up-to-the-minute recovery but often require significant storage and robust infrastructure.
Incremental Backups: Saves only the data that has changed since the last backup (full or incremental). They are faster and consume less storage than full backups, but restoring requires a chain of the most recent full backup and all subsequent incremental backups, which can complicate recovery.
Snapshot Backups: Capture the state of a system or data at a specific point in time. Unlike traditional backups, snapshots are often stored within the same system, making them quick to create and restore. However, they are not ideal for long-term storage as they require ever-growing storage resources.
49% of MSPs Say Hybrid Backups Offer the Best Chances Of Recovery
Of our audience of 132,277 MSP professionals, hybrid backups are considered the most effective for recovering from cyberattacks> Here’s how all the options stacked up:
At 49%, it’s clear that nearly half of our audience agree that hybrid backups are the best choice as they offer the greatest chance of recovery after a cyberattack. These backups combine on-site and off-site solutions, which makes sense as they create a double layer of security. Cloud backups came in second at 32.4%, highlighting the fact that while they are trustworthy, they still have risks and can be compromised in many ways.
The graph also made it clear that MSPs considered where the data was backed up far more important for recovery than the type of data. From full backups to snapshots, engagement levels were low, from just 5.9% to 1.3% overall. Based on this, it’s evident that hybrid is currently considered the best solution for MSPs.
Key Features to Look for in Immutable Backup Solutions
When considering implementing immutable backup solutions, there are a few key factors you need to look out for:
Unalterable Backup Files: The solution must prevent backups from being deleted or modified within the retention window. This is a core principle of this type of backup.
Encryption: Data should be encrypted to prevent unauthorized access.
Granular Recovery Options: The ability to restore data to a specific point in time is crucial for recovery.
Cloud Integration: If using cloud storage, you need to ensure your systems and network are compatible with the cloud platform so that you can streamline backup management.
Ease of Use: Choose a solution with a user-friendly interface for smooth implementation and operation.
Implementing Immutable Backups
The implementation of immutable backups requires careful planning and execution. However, once you understand the process, it’s simple to follow on an ongoing basis:
Step 1: Assess your backup needs and determine which data is critical and requires protection.
Step 2: Choose the right immutable backup solution for your business size, IT infrastructure, compliance and data retention policies.
Step 3: Establish a backup schedule to ensure data is backed up regularly and securely.
Step 4: Test your backups periodically to ensure they work as intended and can be restored promptly.
Technology and Infrastructure
For immutable backups to be effective, your business also needs reliable technology and infrastructure. However, this also depends on the type of immutable backup solution you choose.
If you opt for an on-premises solution, you’ll require high-performance storage solutions, robust network security, and redundancy mechanisms that prevent single points of failure. This will require significant financial investment upfront and an IT professional to manage the solution.
If you opt for a cloud-based backup solution, your requirements are minimal. You’ll simply upload the relevant files to the cloud using the online interface. This option is ideal if you want to scale your business, as your cloud backups can scale with you.
Backup Strategies and Best Practices
Effective data protection requires a well-thought-out strategy to ensure backups are reliable, secure, and readily accessible when needed. Here’s how to approach backups in the best possible way:
Follow the 3-2-1 Backup Rule: This rule requires that you maintain at least three copies of data, two on different media and one off-site or in the cloud.
Implement Data Retention Policies: Define clear data retention policies for all staff and stakeholders to ensure compliance and optimize storage usage.
Conduct Regular Testing: Ensure backups are regularly tested to verify their integrity and functionality. A testing schedule with recorded results should be maintained to ensure this process is followed correctly.
Common Challenges and How to Overcome Them
While immutable backups pose a few challenges, there are simple solutions that can be implemented to ensure they don’t pose an issue.
First and foremost, cost is often a stumbling block, as immutable backups can be more expensive than traditional solutions. To mitigate this, your business can choose a solution that balances cost with features and scalability. You can also opt for a scalable solution with a tiered pricing structure that can easily scale as your data volume increases. By doing so, you will only pay for the services and storage space that you need at any given time.
Complexity is another challenge that many businesses face as they find the setup of immutable backups complicated. However, working with an experienced IT partner or utilizing managed backup services can simplify the process and remove the burden from a business entirely.
Future Trends in Immutable Backups
As cyberattacks become increasingly sophisticated, the demand for immutable backup solutions is expected to grow. In 2024, the next-generation data storage market was valued at $65.1 billion, and by 2029, it is expected to hit $90 billion. With this growth comes technological advances, and the future of immutable backups is focused on AI-driven backup management, greater integration with cloud platforms and an increased focus on compliance and regulatory requirements.
AI and machine learning (ML) can analyze data backup trends, optimize backup schedules, and improve the speed of backup and recovery, making immutable backups even more efficient and easy to manage. The integration of this technology can also detect and deter data breaches, mitigating the risks of an attack.
Cloud-based immutable backup solutions are wholly scalable and cost-effective, so they look set to experience growth, too. These solutions accommodate data growth without any additional infrastructure investments and are accessible from anywhere, which suits the growing number of people operating remotely.
With regional and international regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS expanding their reach and new laws being implemented globally in the same vein, data compliance has become crucial. There is set to be an even greater demand for immutable backups that adhere to these regulations and provide both businesses and their customers with peace of mind.
Overall, immutable backups already provide a critical safeguard for businesses against data loss, cyberattacks, and accidental deletion, and they’re set to become even more efficient and effective in the future. By adopting these solutions, you can enjoy enhanced security, ensure business continuity, and protect your most valuable asset—data.
