Introduction
As part of world backup day on 31st March 2023, we’re taking a look at immutable backups. These can differ in definition from “off-site backups” and “remote backups” because immutable backups ensure your data remains recoverable even in the face of a worst-case scenario.
What’s the purpose of immutable backups?
The purpose of immutable backups is to protect against various threats that can compromise the integrity of backups, from incidents including ransomware attacks, human error, hardware failures and software issues.
In a sophisticated ransomware attack, hackers aim to breach your network, infect your data with ransomware and then go one step further to also encrypt your backups. You may then be left with two options: lose your data, or pay criminals to restore the data that has been encrypted by ransomware.
How immutable backups work
Immutable backups cannot be altered or deleted by any means, including user error or malicious attacks. These backups are stored in an offline or read-only format. Historically, this could have been a tape backup or USB disk backup that was stored in a fireproof safe.
Modern solutions offer immutability with object lock support. This means that the data cannot be modified or deleted once it has been saved, ensuring that the data remains intact and secure.
Extra layer of protection
Immutable backups provide an extra layer of protection against data loss and are a key component of a comprehensive backup and disaster recovery strategy. By implementing such backups, you can minimise the risk of data loss and ensure that critical information remains available and secure, no matter what happens.
Should you have immutable backups?
In short, yes.
How we can help
As a partner with backup providers including Veeam and Barracuda we can recommend the most suitable backup solution, whether that’s cloud-hosted, on-premise or a combination of both. You can contact us to find out more about our backup and disaster recovery services.