“If your laptop crashed today, how confident are you that your data is safe?” Most business owners assume their backups will work. Too many discover otherwise during a ransomware attack—when attackers have already deleted or encrypted the backup copies. Use these seven checks to find out where you stand.
1. Is everything important actually being backed up?
List your critical systems: file servers, accounting and ERP databases, email, cloud drives and key laptops. Confirm each one is in a backup job. Microsoft 365 and other SaaS data usually need their own backup.
2. Do you follow the 3-2-1 rule?
Keep three copies of your data, on two different types of storage, with one copy off-site. A single USB drive or a NAS in the same room is not enough.
3. Is at least one copy isolated from ransomware?
Ransomware spreads to anything it can reach on the network. Keep one copy that is immutable (cannot be changed for a set period), offline, or in a separate cloud account with separate credentials.
4. Are backup credentials protected?
If the same administrator account controls your servers and your backups, an attacker who steals it can delete both. Use separate accounts and MFA for backup consoles.
5. Is someone checking backup jobs every day?
Backups fail silently when disks fill up, passwords change or agents stop. Someone should review alerts daily and fix failures promptly.
6. When did you last test a restore?
A backup is only proven when it has been restored. Test a sample of files monthly and a full system recovery at least twice a year.
7. Do you know how long recovery would take?
Agree how much data the business can afford to lose (recovery point) and how long it can be down (recovery time) for each system—then check that your backup design actually meets those targets.
How did you score?
If you answered “no” or “not sure” to any of these, your recovery is at risk. Peritas can review your backups, fix the gaps and monitor them for you through Managed Backup or Peritas Backup & Recover.
Request a backup review today.
