SBTechnical Marketing Writer
Organizations are navigating a tough economic climate that includes rising costs, supply chain instability, and shifting investment toward AI. These factors make it easy for backup and recovery to look like an area where spending can be delayed. IDC’s latest analysis makes it clear that this is a costly miscalculation.
If attackers can bypass all your organization’s security controls, your backup data is what will allow you to recover data and continue operating. Prevention tools help reduce risk, but they don’t eliminate it. When attackers get into the production system—and not if—organizations rely entirely on the strength of their backup and recovery architecture to restore operations.
Cyber resilience depends on recovery
The IDC study emphasizes that attackers now deliberately target backup systems because they understand their importance. Underfunding this layer leaves organizations exposed at the exact moment they need resilience the most. A reliable backup strategy must ensure data remains immutable, enforce zero access to backup data, and support fast, predictable recovery.
Economic pressure doesn’t slow down bad actors
Waiting for “better market conditions” to modernize backup infrastructure is unrealistic. The IDC study notes that infrastructure costs rarely drop back to previous levels and cyberattacks don’t pause during downturns. The financial fallout from a ransomware incident, including downtime, lost revenue, recovery labor, and regulatory exposure, by far surpass the cost of creating and maintaining a resilient backup environment.
The importance of Absolute Immutability
The IDC study draws a clear line between software‑based immutability and hardware‑enforced immutability. Software controls can be disabled or bypassed. Hardware immutability physically prevents changes to backup data, even if an attacker gains privileged access. This ensures organizations always have clean recovery points available, even in the worst‑case scenario.
This is the foundation of Object First Ootbi, which is purpose‑built to ensure backup data cannot be altered, encrypted, or deleted during the retention period through Absolute Immutability.
The real risk is doing nothing
IDC’s analysis highlights three connected realities: organizations with significant Veeam investments gain meaningful resilience by pairing Veeam with purpose‑built immutable storage; recovery speed directly influences financial and operational impact; and delaying modernization increases the likelihood of an incident the business cannot recover from. Ootbi addresses these challenges with hardware‑enforced immutability, deep Veeam integration, simple deployment, automatic updates, and flexible pricing models that support both CapEx and consumption‑based budgets. Together, these capabilities strengthen the recovery foundation that organizations rely on when prevention fails.
For more details
The IDC Spotlight breaks down the economic, architectural, and operational reasons why backup and recovery must remain a priority.
Read the full IDC Spotlight sponsored by Object First to understand how Absolute Immutability and purpose‑built backup storage strengthen cyber‑resilience: Read the IDC Spotlight.
IDC Spotlight, sponsored by Object First, The Danger of Deferring Backup and Recovery Investments, # US54572026, June 2026