Remote Working Is Creating a Data Vulnerability Gap: Arcserve Independent Global Study

Arcserve’s annual independent global research report has been released, and the results are noteworthy. These peeks into the experiences and attitudes of IT decision makers (ITDMs) help us identify and solve the data protection challenges facing organizations today.

The big takeaway from this year’s report is that businesses overlook remote work in their data backup and recovery plans. The findings also show that many organizations fail to ensure operational compliance and business continuity when faced with an explosion of fragmented data and dispersed technologies.

Remote Workers’ Data Isn’t Being Backed Up

When asked whether they had a backup and recovery solution in place for remote workers, the research study respondents’ answers shine a spotlight on the problem:

• Only one-third have backup and recovery systems in place for all remote employees.

That leaves the majority of respondents with a data vulnerability gap that breaks down as follows:

• 23 percent said they had no backup and recovery solution in place for any of their remote employees.
• 39 percent only had plans in place for some—but not all—workers.
• Only 3 percent said they didn’t have any remote employees.

Even for those companies that do have a remote backup solution, there were widely varying levels of importance placed on them:

• 46 percent believe there is no difference compared to backing up onsite employees.
• 39 percent of companies said they had better systems in place for onsite employees.
• Just 15 percent said they had better backup systems for remote employees.

Multi-Cloud Complexities Multiply the Problem

The study also dove into the rise of hybrid working and multi-cloud environments to see whether these changes increased the complexity of managing and protecting data:

• 82 percent of ITDMs said that hybrid and multi-cloud strategies increase the complexity and vulnerability of data flows.
• 87 percent say changes in compliance and data privacy requirements have impacted them, with increased costs being the most significant of those impacts.

"Ransomware attacks have skyrocketed in organizations with employees in less secure home-office environments and much more data in the cloud,” said Florian Malecki, executive vice president of marketing at Arcserve. “We encourage companies to implement the 3-2-1-1 backup and recovery strategy, including immutable storage solutions, so data remains intact and easily recoverable. By implementing Arcserve's Unified Data Resilience solutions, businesses can quickly recover from a data-destructive event and flourish in the new world of work, with all the challenges and possibilities it holds."

The global study was conducted by Dimensional Research and included 1,121 responding IT decision-makers. These participants had budgetary or technical decision-making responsibility for data management, data protection, and storage solutions. The company size spanned 100-2,500 employees with at least 5 TB of data.

To learn more about how Arcserve products can help you close your vulnerability gaps, choose an expert Arcserve technology partner or contact us.