Immutable Backup vs Regular Backup: Why Ransomware Changes the Calculus

A regular backup protects against accidental deletion and hardware failure. It does not reliably protect against ransomware - and that distinction now matters more than almost any other backup decision a small business makes.

What a regular backup actually protects against

A regular backup - a scheduled copy of files or systems to another location - protects well against accidental deletion, hardware failure, or a corrupted file. If it's writable and reachable from the same network as your production systems, it's also reachable by anything that compromises that network.

Why ransomware specifically targets backups

Modern ransomware doesn't just encrypt production data - it actively hunts for backup systems first, because a business with a working backup has no reason to pay a ransom. If the backup can be reached, written to, or deleted from the compromised network, an attacker with sufficient access can take it out along with everything else.

What 'immutable' actually means

An immutable backup is stored in a state that cannot be altered, encrypted, or deleted for a defined retention period - not even by someone with full administrative access to the production network. Even if an attacker compromises every credential in your environment, the immutable copy remains untouched and recoverable.

Choosing the right approach

For most small businesses, the right approach combines both: regular backups for everyday recovery needs, layered with immutable storage specifically to survive a ransomware event, plus independent cloud-to-cloud backup of Microsoft 365 data that Microsoft's own retention policies don't reliably cover. Our data protection and resilience service is built around exactly this combination.