Achieving Cyber Resilience: The Strategic Evolution of Data Protection
At Ditch the Drama, we were lucky to be joined by Krista Case, seasoned analyst at The Futurum Group and a recognized voice in the world of data protection. Krista brought a wave of insight and fresh research, shedding light on one of today’s most pressing IT imperatives: cyber resilience.
Her message was clear—data protection is no longer just a back-end function. It’s a strategic business priority. And in a world where cyberattacks are not a matter of if but when, resilience is the only way forward.
Data Protection Must Be Both Reactive and Preventative
Krista framed today’s challenge as a balancing act. On one side: the need to respond swiftly to breaches. On the other: the need to prevent them in the first place.
Organizations must not only detect and respond to threats—but also architect their systems to withstand attacks with minimal disruption. That’s where the shift to cyber resilience comes in: being prepared to take a hit and keep going.
Why Cyber Resilience Is Now a C-Suite Priority
According to Futurum research, the most common outcomes of a cyberattack are data loss, operational downtime, and regulatory penalties. With ransomware and data extortion on the rise, executives are paying attention—because the stakes are business-critical.
Data is now the primary target for attackers. Sensitive files, intellectual property, customer info—it’s all fair game. And the damage goes beyond technical: reputation, revenue, and regulatory standing are all on the line.
Emerging Threats: Identity Is the New Perimeter
Krista emphasized a major trend: cloud-related threats are growing more sophisticated, with attackers targeting identity as the new attack surface. Fueled by AI, threat actors are now better at impersonation and lateral movement—gaining access to critical systems and sensitive data through compromised credentials.
Zero Trust architecture is no longer optional—it’s foundational. And that model must now extend to backup environments as well, ensuring every layer of data protection is hardened.
A Modern Data Protection Strategy: What Enterprises Need
Krista laid out a blueprint for future-ready data protection:
- Start with classification. Know what your crown jewels are—what data matters most, where it lives, and how it’s being secured.
- Build application-aware recovery. Don’t just recover data—recover the full business service behind it.
- Ensure immutability and isolation. Tamper-proof backups are critical, especially when attackers now target backup systems directly.
- Adopt anomaly detection. Modern solutions should automatically spot unusual behavior and trigger alerts or backups in real time.
- Integrate security and recovery. Data protection and SecOps must work in tandem, reducing silos and building unified incident response strategies.
Why Backup Assumptions Are Dangerous
One of the most eye-opening moments in Krista’s session? The danger of assuming your backups are clean and recoverable. Too many organizations still operate with the belief that a backup equals safety. But if backups are infected, the recovery process becomes a liability.
Recovery isn’t just about restoring data—it’s about restoring operations at scale, often across multi-cloud environments. And that takes planning, tooling, and practice.
The People Problem: Recovery Is a Team Sport
A recurring theme: recovery is as much about people and process as it is about technology. Krista pointed out that too many organizations still operate with siloed security and IT teams—without clear incident roles or coordinated recovery plans.
Misconceptions abound: that teams can simply “figure it out” in the moment. That backups are automatically trustworthy. That rehearsing recovery isn’t worth the time.
But the truth? If you’ve never tested recovery under real conditions, you’re not ready.
The Rise of Red Teams—And Why You Don’t Need One to Be Prepared
While larger enterprises often have red teams to simulate attacks and rehearse recovery, Krista noted that smaller organizations can still simulate these scenarios. Many data protection platforms now offer tools that mimic cyber incidents and validate recovery paths.
Even without a formal red team, companies can test, iterate, and improve.
The Road Ahead: Evolving Alongside AI and SaaS
Looking forward, Krista sees the continued evolution of AI capabilities helping teams detect suspicious activity with more confidence—and even automate recovery workflows.
She also noted that the explosion of SaaS applications across enterprises is reshaping data protection needs. Protecting cloud-native apps, distributed data, and diverse environments will be the next big frontier in cyber resilience.
Check out Krista’s full session:
Ditching the Drama with N2W
Krista’s insights are at the heart of why we created Ditch the Drama—a virtual event from N2W, designed to help cloud IT teams cut through complexity and reclaim their time.
As part of our rebrand, N2W is doubling down on simplifying backup and disaster recovery—so you can spend less time firefighting and more time building. In a world of cyber chaos, we’re here to help you stay resilient, responsive, and always ready.
Try the new N2W free today—and take the drama out of data protection.
