Beyond Backups: Building True Data Resilience in the Age of Ransomware

Cyberattacks have evolved. What was once a matter of protecting data with reliable backups has become a much larger challenge: ensuring organizations can detect, withstand, and recover from increasingly sophisticated ransomware attacks.

During Horizon’s recent webinar, IBM Data Resilience, IBM Storage Technical Sales Specialist Alexis Kojic shared insights into how organizations can rethink data protection and move toward a more comprehensive resilience strategy. The session highlighted the changing threat landscape, common recovery gaps, and practical approaches businesses can take to reduce risk and improve recovery readiness.

Watch the full webinar recording below:

Why Traditional Backups Are No Longer Enough

Many organizations still view backups as their primary line of defense against data loss. However, today’s ransomware attacks are designed specifically to target backup environments.

According to statistics shared during the webinar:

• The average cost of a data breach in the United States reached over $10 million in 2025.
• 94% of ransomware attacks actively target backup systems.
• More than half of those attempts successfully compromise backup data.
• Over 70% of organizations require more than 100 days to fully recover from a significant cyber incident.

The reality is that attackers are no longer simply encrypting production environments. They are deliberately identifying and compromising recovery systems before launching their attacks, leaving organizations with limited recovery options.

The Three Biggest Data Resilience Challenges

Throughout the session, IBM identified three common patterns that leave organizations vulnerable during a cyber incident.

1. Siloed Teams and Fragmented Visibility

In many organizations, storage teams, security teams, and backup administrators operate independently. Each group uses different tools, focuses on different priorities, and often lacks a unified view of the environment.

During normal operations, this separation may not seem problematic. During a ransomware attack, however, it can create confusion and delay critical response efforts.

Storage teams may see performance anomalies, security teams may receive threat alerts, and backup teams may discover compromised backups—all at different times and through different systems.

Without shared visibility and coordinated workflows, response times increase while attackers continue to spread throughout the environment.

2. Confusing Backup with Resilience

Traditional disaster recovery plans were often designed for hardware failures, power outages, or accidental data deletion.

Ransomware presents a fundamentally different challenge.

Unlike traditional disasters:

• The attack is intentional and targeted.
• Backup systems may already be compromised.
• Recovery points may not be trustworthy.
• Malware may remain hidden in the environment for weeks before activation.

Organizations need more than backup copies. They need the ability to identify clean recovery points and validate them before restoration begins.

3. Lack of Recovery Testing

One of the most common issues discussed during the webinar was the lack of regular recovery validation.

Many businesses successfully complete backup jobs every day but rarely test full-scale recovery processes.

A backup that has never been tested may not be usable when it is needed most.

True resilience requires organizations to regularly verify that systems can be restored quickly, completely, and without reintroducing malware into production environments.

The Hidden Danger: Attackers Often Have a Head Start

One of the most eye-opening statistics shared during the webinar was the average dwell time of ransomware attackers.

On average, attackers remain inside a network for approximately three weeks before launching encryption activities.

During that time they may:

• Map the environment
• Identify critical systems
• Locate backup repositories
• Steal credentials
• Disable security controls

By the time encryption begins, significant damage may already be underway.

This is why early detection has become a critical component of modern cyber resilience strategies.

A Framework for Modern Data Resilience

IBM presented a simple but effective resilience framework built around three core objectives:

Protect

Organizations must establish secure, isolated, and immutable copies of critical data.

Protection strategies should include:

• Immutable snapshots
• Isolated recovery environments
• Encryption
• Multiple recovery points

The goal is to ensure attackers cannot alter or delete recovery data even if they gain administrative access.

Detect

Early detection significantly reduces recovery complexity and downtime.

Modern detection capabilities analyze data activity continuously to identify signs of ransomware behavior before widespread encryption occurs.

Faster detection means:

• Less data loss
• Faster recovery
• Reduced operational disruption

Recover

Recovery is where resilience strategies ultimately succeed or fail.

Organizations need:

• Verified clean recovery points
• Automated recovery workflows
• Application-aware restoration
• Prioritized recovery of critical business services

Recovery should focus on restoring business operations, not simply restoring data.

A Real-World Example: Learning from Ransomware

The webinar featured a case study involving a major Canadian food production cooperative that experienced a ransomware attack.

The organization faced:

• Months of operational disruption
• Significant financial losses
• Partial data recovery despite paying a ransom
• A second attack shortly after payment

The experience highlighted an important lesson: paying a ransom does not guarantee recovery.

Following the incident, the organization implemented a multi-layered resilience strategy that included:

• Immutable storage snapshots
• Isolated backup infrastructure
• Secondary recovery sites
• Daily backup validation
• Faster threat detection capabilities

The result was a significantly improved ability to recover from future incidents while reducing overall risk exposure.

The Importance of Clean Recovery Environments

A recurring theme throughout the session was the concept of a “clean room” recovery environment.

Rather than restoring data directly into production systems, organizations can first validate backups in an isolated environment.

This approach allows teams to:

• Verify backups are malware-free
• Test application functionality
• Confirm recovery integrity
• Prevent reinfection during restoration

Recovery decisions become evidence-based rather than guesswork.

Key Questions Every Organization Should Ask

As cyber threats continue to evolve, organizations should evaluate their readiness by asking:

• How quickly can we detect ransomware activity?
• Are our backups isolated and immutable?
• Have we tested a full recovery recently?
• Can we identify a clean recovery point with confidence?
• Are our storage, security, and backup teams aligned during an incident?
• Do we have a documented and validated recovery plan?

If any of these questions are difficult to answer, there may be opportunities to strengthen your resilience posture.

Moving from Backup to Resilience

The primary takeaway from the webinar was clear:

Backups alone do not guarantee recovery.

Organizations must move beyond traditional backup strategies and adopt a broader resilience approach that combines protection, detection, validation, and recovery planning.

As ransomware attacks become more sophisticated, success is no longer measured by whether data was backed up. It is measured by how quickly and confidently an organization can restore operations when an attack occurs.

Businesses that prioritize data resilience today will be better positioned to minimize downtime, protect customer trust, and maintain continuity when faced with tomorrow’s cyber threats.

Want to Assess Your Organization’s Data Resilience?

Horizon and IBM offer a complimentary Data Resilience Assessment designed to help organizations identify gaps, evaluate recovery readiness, and benchmark their environment against leading cybersecurity frameworks.

Contact Horizon to learn more about scheduling an assessment and strengthening your organization’s resilience strategy.