Each year on March 31st, just before April Fool's Day, cybersecurity professionals, IT teams, and business leaders alike are reminded of a simple truth: data loss isn't a matter of if, but when.
World Backup Day is more than a calendar curiosity—it's a call to action. In a digital world defined by ransomware, cloud sprawl, and hybrid infrastructures, the ability to recover data quickly and securely is one of the most important indicators of an organization's cyber resilience.
A critical business function, not just a checkbox
"World Backup Day acts as a crucial reminder that data loss is inevitable, encouraging us to take proactive steps to protect our information," says Emilio Sepulveda, Manager of Information Security at Deepwatch. "Ensuring an efficient backup strategy is not just a checkbox on the compliance checklist; it is a critical business necessity."
For many organizations, backups remain an afterthought—implemented once, then quietly forgotten. But in the face of modern cyber threats, including ransomware that specifically seeks out and deletes backups, that mindset can be catastrophic.
Ransomware's bullseye: your backups
Cybercriminals know that if they can destroy your backups, they've won. According to Ken Dunham, Director of Cyber Threat at Qualys Threat Research Unit (TRU): "Ransomware continues to rage, using tactics to discover and delete backups to force a payout. There has never been a stronger need for resiliency than in 2025."
Dunham warns against over-reliance on third-party tools without verification. "Don't just hope and rely upon your third-party cloud provider or tool to back things up; demonstrate and prove that it is backing up every month on every basis."
The message is clear: trust, but verify. Ensure backups are truly happening—and that they work when you need them.
Beyond the 3-2-1 rule: toward hardened resilience
Many experts advocate the 3-2-1 rule—three copies of your data, stored on two types of media, with one offsite. But in today's threat landscape, that's just the beginning.
Heath Renfrow, Co-Founder and CISO of Fenix14, urges organizations to go further with a more robust strategy: "We advocate for our 5-4-3-2-1 backup methodology. This strategy ensures data is not just duplicated, but hardened, diversified, and distributed in a way that aligns with today's adversarial tactics."
Renfrow's insight comes from direct experience: "We've rebuilt hundreds of environments after ransomware attacks, and time and again, the difference between recovery and ruin comes down to one thing: backup resilience."
Backup hygiene: encryption, automation, and testing
A backup that can't be restored is no backup at all. Cyber leaders emphasize that testing backup and disaster recovery (BCDR) plans must be part of the routine—not just an annual checkbox.
Mayuresh Dani, Manager of Security Research at Qualys TRU, highlights additional best practices: "These backups should also be regularly tested to ensure they are functional and recoverable. To add more security, they should also be automated and encrypted to provide data privacy."
Encryption and automation reduce the risk of human error and ensure consistency. Testing—both technical and procedural—confirms that when the worst happens, recovery is possible.
Don't overlook mobile and shadow data
Modern IT environments extend well beyond servers and cloud storage. Tim Roddy, VP of Product Advocacy at Zimperium, points to a growing blind spot, saying, "Cybercriminals now take on a mobile-first attack strategy… targeting mobile devices with sophisticated threats." He advocates for proactive mobile threat defense to protect data before it ever reaches backup systems.
Similarly, Steve Petryschuk of Auvik notes that shadow IT and overlooked SaaS applications often result in data going unprotected. "You back up the data you know about, but what about the data you don't see?"
Visibility, in other words, is a prerequisite to full protection.
Final word: backups are a business imperative
As cyberattacks become more destructive and sophisticated, backups are not a "nice-to-have"—they are essential infrastructure. As Dana Simberkoff, Chief Risk, Privacy, and Information Security Officer at AvePoint, puts it: "World Backup Day offers a critical reminder to all security professionals of just how important flexible and robust data governance and backup policies are in today's cybersecurity landscape."
Whether you're a CISO leading enterprise-wide backup modernization or a home user plugging in a USB drive for your personal files, World Backup Day is your cue to ask: Can I recover if disaster strikes?
If the answer isn't a confident "yes," now's the time to change that.
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