Arcserve, the world’s most experienced provider of backup, recovery and immutable storage solutions for unified data resilience against ransomware and disasters, has announced key findings from its annual independent global research. The study found that over a quarter (27%) of IT decision-makers (ITDMs) in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) falsely believe that cloud providers are responsible for protecting and recovering data in the public cloud. This misconception of data protection responsibility can lead to increased vulnerability, especially amid a growing cloud investment trend for the cloud.

The Arcserve annual global survey uncovers a consistent misperception regarding the responsibility for data stored in public clouds. In 2019, 46% of ITDMs globally believed it was the cloud provider’s responsibility. The misconception persisted in 2020, with 44% believing the same, and now stands at 43% in the latest research. The research highlights several additional factors that reveal a concerning lag in data protection, including:

• 80% of ITDMs in ANZ surveyed believe cloud backups are safer than on-premises backups, above the global average of 64%
• One-third (33%) ANZ respondents reported poorly documented disaster recovery plans.
• 37% in ANZ reported that their organisation’s disaster recovery plans were not updated.

Said David Lenz, vice president of Asia Pacific at Arcserve: “Organisations need to understand that data protection and recovery responsibility lies with them, not with the cloud provider. The time to act is now, particularly amid growing hybrid and multi-cloud adoption as proven by our annual research with some 85% of ANZ ITDMs expecting to increase hybrid cloud investments and 69% expecting to increase multi-cloud investment.”