GoKawiilWritten by Subramani Raom Senior Manager, Cybersecurity Solutions Strategy at Acronis
Your backup plan probably won’t survive a ransomware attack. Why? Because backups fail during ransomware attacks when attackers deliberately target and destroy backup systems before launching encryption. In modern attacks, backup infrastructure is often exposed, accessible and unprotected, making recovery impossible. What should serve as a recovery mechanism becomes a single point of failure instead.
Platforms like Acronis Cyber Platform address this problem by combining backup with security controls such as immutability, access protection and threat detection.
For years, backups have been positioned as the ultimate fallback in cybersecurity strategy, the guarantee that even if systems are compromised, recovery is still possible. But there is a new, uncomfortable reality: Backups often fail during ransomware attacks not because they don’t exist but because they are exposed, accessible and unprotected.
It’s no secret that the pace and severity of ransomware attacks are continually accelerating. The number of attacks rose 50% last year, according to the Acronis Cyberthreats Report H2 2025. It’s time for IT and security professionals to rethink long-standing assumptions about backup and recovery.
How attackers systematically break backup strategies
Most ransomware attacks follow a predictable sequence:
Initial access → credential theft → lateral movement → backup discovery → backup destruction → ransomware deployment
To stop this chain, organizations need controls at each stage. For example, Acronis integrates endpoint protection, credential monitoring and backup protection in one platform to detect threats before backups are compromised.
Backup systems are rarely isolated. Once attackers gain administrative credentials, they can:
... continue reading