Thirty-six percent of government IT departments nationwide do not have a documented disaster recovery plan, according to a new study released by Arcserve, a provider of backup, recovery and data storage solutions based in Draper. The findings are included in the first segment of Arcserve’s annual independent global research, which focuses on government IT departments’ approach and experience with ransomware and data recovery preparedness.
“(Our) findings reveal several weaknesses that can hamper government departments’ fight against ransomware and their ability to recover data,” an Arcserve release said.
The study also found that only 38 percent of government IT departments have a comprehensive business continuity plan that includes recovery, interim solutions and communication. Of government workers who work remotely, only 24 percent are not equipped with backup and recovery solutions.
As many as 45 percent of government IT departments believe it is not their responsibility to recover data and applications in public clouds. Although most government IT departments (82 percent) believe that one day is an acceptable amount of time to recover from a data loss or system crash, 33 percent say they would be down longer than that and only 34 percent are very confident in their IT team’s ability to recover all lost data in the event of a ransomware attack.
“It’s like opening yourself up to a one-two knock-out punch,” said Patrick Tournoy, executive vice president of operations at Arcserve. “Gaps in protecting remote workers and cloud-based apps and data create an ideal hunting ground for bad actors and ransomware, while not having documented and tested recovery plans leave an organization more vulnerable and poorly equipped to recover data.”