IT leaders face growing ransomware threat and backup immutability gap

A study conducted by Omdia and published by Object First reveals a significant “immutability gap” in corporate cybersecurity. While 93 percent of IT leaders identify absolutely immutable backup storage—data that cannot be modified or deleted even by privileged administrators—as a critical requirement, only 16 percent of organizations currently possess it.

The research, which surveyed 700 IT decision-makers across the US, UK, Ireland, France, and the DACH region, highlights a sharp increase in successful ransomware attacks. The percentage of surveyed organizations experiencing a successful attack rose to 83 percent over the past two years, up from 66 percent in 2024.

Data recovery capabilities are also declining. Only 39 percent of affected organizations were able to recover at least 75 percent of their data, a decrease from 57 percent in 2024. Additionally, 76 percent of organizations reported that their largest data-loss events exceeded their Recovery Point Objective targets, and two-thirds experienced outages longer than their Recovery Time Objective.