By: James Keating, StorONE Solution Architect
In the IT storage world in 2025, there is a lot of talk about backups, archives, immutability, and ransomware attacks; despite all of this attention, these definitions are as fuzzy as ever. I have been working with backups and archives since before the iPhone was a thing, and during this time, it has always amazed me at the vast differences in definitions that exist for what we all would think are common items. For example, I have gotten definitions for enterprise backup that could fit into archival or disaster recovery. It seems like there is no common understanding of what one is referring to when they mention backups. So, let’s look at backups as a copy of data for restoration when data is lost or corrupted, or we need to perform a task on the data we don’t want to do on the primary copy.
Backups are more than writing to hybrid storage
Using my above definition, I have often seen backups treated as something more akin to a diet than a true business function. I am referring to when backups are viewed as something we should be doing, and we try, but we don’t have any real procedures or models we consistently use. It reminds me of eating healthy; we want to and try to, but we don’t take all the steps to ensure it happens consistently. A more technical way of looking at this is architecting backups as backups. This is the practice of focusing on achieving a backup copy. However, I would argue that backups should be treated more regarding restores. A backup’s goal is to restore the data when needed, so architecting for successful restores may be a better way.
In the past, restoration of backups was often limited to a few files due to corruption or user error; the ask was not typically to restore an entire environment; this was left to disaster recovery functions (for this discussion, we will assume that is some form or replication). Enter ransomware, and now backups may be required to restore an entire environment, and there will be the pressure of doing so quickly to get back into production. This is because replication alone is not enough in an age of ransomware encrypting your data; if it is encrypted on side A, it will quickly become encrypted on side B. Ransomware bad actors know this; they also know that backups have long been an area of potential weakness so that they will target backups.
Ransomware has changed the game
Let’s look at how a ransomware attack can work. The bad actors get into your systems, and depending on who you ask, they sometimes sit there for a long time, over 100 days. They use this time to map out where the data is and how the data moves throughout the enterprise. Next, backups are targeted; this does two things: it makes it much more difficult to get data back after an attack, but it also is an area that won’t be noticed immediately. Think of it as going for the lowest rung first in terms of how companies typically classify data. Then, they will move up the data stack and eventually encrypt production. This means backups are an edge or attack surface.
So, how can one help prevent this? First are good security practices that are a given, but backups should also be viewed not as the lowest rung of data but as a primary attack surface and a critical part of surviving a ransomware attack. From a StorONE perspective, this is a place where a multi-layered approach would seem good. Use your backup software’s security features as a layer. Use good overall security practices as a layer. Finally, add the immutable snapshot feature of StorONE to give your backup data an enhanced level of protection. Yes, I am suggesting snapshots of your backup data. This can be easily achieved with a StorONE system as the backup storage target. StorONE offers included immutability on all snapshots, be it primary or backup data. Secondly, we can provide multi-admin approval for changes to the snapshot data, which is another layer of protection. StorONE also allows for the cost-effective storage of snapshots for years with optimized data placement. Think of it as air-gapped immutability like tape, with the ease and performance of a disk.
In a time when data is more critical than ever, having a strategy for all layers of your data, including backups, is essential. If you want to know more about StorONE or how StorONE can help contact us at info@storone.com
