Rubrik Zero Labs finds only 16% of organisations recovered all data via attacker decryption tools after paying ransomware demand

Almost all IT and security leaders (96%) globally are concerned their organisation will be unable to maintain business continuity following a cyber attack, according to a new study released today by Rubrik, the Zero Trust Data Security company. “The State of Data Security by Rubrik Zero Labs: The Hard Truths of Data Security” provides a unique view into the data security landscape, what IT and security leaders experienced and struggled with in 2022, and the actions and steps they are taking to establish real cyber resilience.

Rubrik Zero Labs commissioned its second global study with Wakefield Research to gather insights from more than 1 600 IT and security leaders – half of which were CIOs and CISOs – across 10 countries. Supplemented by Rubrik telemetry, key findings of the report include:

• Data security is becoming increasingly complex and the datasets that require securing are growing rapidly. Rubrik internal data revealed that on average, the growth of data secured in 2022 was 25% (on-premises grew 19%, cloud grew 61% and SaaS data secured grew 236% last year).
• More than half (56%) of organisations currently employ at least one zero trust initiative.
• However, only 56% of IT and security leaders developed or reviewed an incident response plan in 2022 and 54% tested backup and recovery options.

• Ninety-nine percent of external organisations reported having backup and recovery technology, with 93% encountering significant issues with their solution.
• Nine out of 10 external organisations reported malicious actors attempted to impact data backups during a cyber attack, and 73% were at least partially successful in these attempts.
• Nearly three-quarters (72%) of organisations reported paying a ransomware demand.
• Only 16% of all global organisations recovered all of their data via attacker decryption tools.

• Almost half (47%) of IT and security leaders believe their 2023 cyber security budget is not enough of an investment.
• Twenty-seven percent expect their IT and cyber security budgets to decrease in 2023.
• IT and security leaders will need to work at bringing their teams together, with only 4% stating there are no factors limiting the IT and security alignment requiring their attention this year.

“It’s clear organisations understand the gravity and impact of cyber incidents, but we also see a range of roadblocks from a lack of preparation, misalignment between IT and security teams and over-reliance on insufficient backup and recovery solutions,” said Steven Stone, Head of Rubrik Zero Labs. “In the current era of cyber security, the best outcome is ensuring cyber resilience. Incidents are inevitable, so it’s critical to reduce the risk before a response is needed, and – at all costs – protect the crown jewel: the data.”

“The State of Data Security” comes from Rubrik Zero Labs, the company’s cyber security research unit formed to analyse the global threat landscape, report on emerging data security issues and give organisations research-backed insights and best practices to secure their data against increasing cyber events.

To learn more about Rubrik Zero Labs’ “The State of Data Security”, visit https://rubrik.com/zero-labs.