How SMBs Can Strengthen Data Protection Against Cyberattacks and Vulnerabilities

More than half of businesses are rethinking their backup and recovery strategies in 2025, driven by rising costs, usability issues and sluggish recovery times. According to our recent State of Backup and Recovery Report, 50% of organisations plan to switch their primary backup solution this year, citing frustrations around cost inefficiencies and lack of confidence in recovery. For small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs) — where every dollar and minute counts — this trend signals a critical moment: outdated backup approaches could mean the difference between resilience and crippling disruptions.

The stakes are high. Cyber incidents remain the leading concern for organisations worldwide. Meanwhile, according to the 2023–2024 Cyber Threat report, the ASD responded to over 1,100 cybersecurity incidents. 11% of these incidents included ransomware, a 3% increase from last year, underscoring why nearly a third of IT professionals are concerned about backup failures. In this climate, SMBs can’t afford to ignore the warning signs.

Key Challenges & Trends in Data Protection

Cloud Dominance and Hybrid Complexity

Cloud adoption is skyrocketing, with over 50% of workloads now hosted in public cloud environments. Yet 8% of organisations still don’t back up their public cloud data, often assuming providers automatically handle all security. This misconception leaves critical assets exposed if a misconfiguration, cyber incident or outage strikes.

For SMBs, the impact can be severe. Many lack dedicated IT security teams, relying on hybrid setups (cloud + on-premises) that amplify complexity. According to Gartner Cybersecurity Trends 2025, 82% of breaches involve cloud misconfigurations — highlighting the need for robust backup policies, particularly as businesses juggle multiple cloud services alongside in-house servers.

Backup Switching and Cost Pressures

Cost remains the top driver for switching backup providers. Over half of respondents in Kaseya’s report spend 10+ hours each week on backup tasks, an unsustainable load for smaller teams. Managing data across hybrid IT further increases expenses, forcing SMBs to invest in multiple tools for on-premises, SaaS applications and public clouds.

Kaseya’s State of Backup report confirms that cost is the number-one challenge to data protection. With IT budgets tightening and the average cost of a data breach now exceeding USD 4.4 million, SMBs must find solutions that balance affordability with reliability before a breach exposes any gaps.

Usability and Confidence Gaps

There’s a big gap between perception and reality when it comes to recovery. 60% of respondents think they can restore data within a day, yet only 35% can actually achieve this. For SMBs, each additional hour of downtime can spell financial loss and reputational damage.

More concerning, 12% of businesses either test their disaster recovery on an ad hoc basis or not at all—despite 90% recognising its importance. This discrepancy leaves many SMBs operating with a false sense of security that may collapse under the strain of a cyberattack or a system failure.

Security and Compliance Shortfalls

In 2025, ransomware attacks aren’t just targeting primary systems; they’re going after backups directly. Without a secure backup strategy, SMBs could risk losing their last line of defence, rendering recovery impossible. Based on Kaseya’s report, 25% of organisations continue to lack adequate security policies for their backup environments, meaning a single breach could destroy both live data and backup copies.

Ransomware incidents on backup systems have jumped 71% in the last year. This is especially perilous for SMBs — 60% of which close within six months of a major cyberattack . It is clear that fortifying backups is no longer a matter of choice.

Actionable Takeaways for SMBs

As SMBs confront growing threats to their data, adopting a proactive approach to backup and recovery is needed to mitigate increases in cyberattacks and data vulnerabilities. SMBs must prioritise strategies that not only safeguard critical assets but also ensure swift and reliable recovery when disaster strikes. 

Here are some actions that can help SMBs strengthen their data protection efforts and enhance resilience in the face of evolving risks.

• Prioritise Critical Data & Define Recovery Goals: Identifying your most valuable systems and setting Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) ensures that resources are focused where they’re needed most.
  
  
• Leverage AI & Automation: Maximising the capabilities of AI-driven backup automation can streamline scheduling, anomaly detection and restore processes, while adopting regular, automated test restores can reveal any weak spots before a real incident occurs.
  
  
• Adopt a Hybrid & Multi-Cloud Strategy: Never rely on a single vendor’s native backup. Spread risk across multiple platforms or a combination of on-premises and cloud services, ensuring data remains recoverable even if one system fails.
  

• Strengthen Backup Security & Compliance: As ransomware increasingly targets backups, end-to-end encryption, multi-factor authentication and strict access controls are essential. Aligning these with applicable regulations, such as local privacy laws, can help avoid legal repercussions if data is compromised.

Looking Ahead: The Future of SMB Data Protection

With more than 30% of IT professionals losing sleep over their backup preparedness, SMBs must take proactive steps rather than wait for a crisis to occur. Integrated, AI-driven solutions can offer continuous testing and seamless disaster recovery. By prioritising backup security, adopting hybrid or multi-cloud architectures and regularly validating restore capabilities, SMBs can attain the same resilience as larger enterprises — without exceeding tight budgets. Ultimately, a resilient backup and recovery plan is no longer a luxury — it’s essential for long-term survival. 

Craig Allen is Chief Technology Officer at Kaseya.

Last Updated on April 16, 2025 by Craig Allen