Many companies think they have backups handled, only to find out the hard way that their protection isn’t as strong as they believed. A few common myths can leave your data vulnerable to ransomware, hardware failure, or simple human error. Here are three backup myths that silently put your business at risk.
“We back up to a hard drive in the office, so we’re safe.”
A local backup is better than nothing, but it’s still in the same building as your systems. Fire, flood, theft, or a serious power event can take out both your live data and your backup at the same time. Ransomware can also hit local backups—if the drive is connected or accessible on the network, it can get encrypted right along with everything else. A safer setup includes at least one offsite copy, protected with encryption and restricted access.
“Our cloud apps back up everything for us.”
Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace are designed for availability and collaboration. They often include helpful recovery features like recycle bins and version history, but those features have limits and retention windows that can vary based on settings. If a file is deleted, overwritten, or a user account is removed, you might only have a limited time to recover it. A separate backup solution that copies your cloud data on a schedule makes it much easier to restore specific emails, files, folders, or even entire accounts to a point in time before the issue happened.
“If the backup runs, it must be working.”
A backup report can say “success,” and you can still be stuck with incomplete or unusable data. Backups can fail quietly due to storage limits, permission changes, corrupted files, or misconfigurations. That’s why backups need three things: monitoring, alerts someone actually reads, and regular restore testing. Testing a restore in a safe environment is the only real proof that your backups will save you when you need them.
A solid backup strategy comes down to two targets: how much data you can afford to lose, and how quickly you need to be back up and running. When your backups are offsite, protected, monitored, and tested, you reduce downtime and avoid expensive surprises. Give our team a call. We are happy to help.
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