2026 update: The five themes below still hold. What has sharpened since 2021 is ransomware: attackers often try to delete or encrypt backups as well as live systems. Design for at least one offline or immutable copy, test restores on a schedule, and do not treat Microsoft 365 or other SaaS retention alone as your only recovery plan (see
SaaS backup).
Data backup is crucial for businesses of all sizes, not just large corporates.
If your business uses or stores information of any kind, data integrity and security should be a top priority.
Under UK GDPR and good practice, your ability to recover from data loss should be a core part of how you run IT.
A data breach could have a devastating impact on your business, regardless of its size, causing downtime, lost revenue and regulatory, financial and reputational harm.
Ransomware and malware remain a major threat, but hardware failure, power loss, theft, misconfiguration and human error can also wipe out unprotected data.
Hard drive corruption, hardware failure, power outages, theft, datacentre or server failure, hacking, software corruption and even simple human error can all lead to data loss, which can significantly impact the business.
Here, we take a closer look at the
importance of data backup for SMEs (see also
BCDR solutions for SMEs) and the things you should consider to keep your data safe.
What is data backup?
As its name suggests, backup is all about keeping your business’ critical data safe, so it can be restored if it is lost, damaged, or you need to view a previous copy.
Backing up your data involves making copies of it from the original files so that if the original files get damaged, corrupted or lost due to malware, cyber attack, hardware failure, software faults or simple human error, your data can be restored.
Keeping regular backups of your data will also help protect your business against risks including:
- Accidental deletion of files or emails
- Misconfigured retention policies
- Corrupted files that aren’t noticed until the corruption has been replicated
- Compromised administrator accounts
- Syncing issues causing files to become corrupted
- Malware attacks that go unnoticed before the affected files have been encrypted and replicated
Why backup is important
Cybercrime affects organisations of all sizes. Just because you’re an SME, it would be wrong – and unsafe – to assume that your business wouldn’t be of interest to organised cybercriminals or opportunist hackers.
The UK Government’s
Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025/26 reports that 74% of UK businesses back up data securely via a cloud service. The survey also continues to show that a large share of businesses report breaches or attacks each year, with phishing and related scams among the most common, and many affected organisations report financial loss, data loss or other disruption. That is why tested backups matter for SMEs, not only for large enterprises.
So, when it comes to backing up your business-critical data, here are five things to consider:
Business Continuity
Having a robust business continuity plan is vital. It should aim to reduce the length of downtime and business disruption caused by a data breach or cyber attack, keep data loss to a minimum and help to meet UK GDPR obligations and customer expectations, protecting your brand and your reputation.
Secure backups
Use a reputable backup service with encryption in transit and at rest. As a baseline, favour suppliers and practices aligned with NCSC guidance and Cyber Essentials where that scheme fits your business.
Staff vigilance
Your staff can often be the weak link in your cybersecurity arsenal. So, making sure they are trained and know what their responsibilities are in keeping your IT systems, infrastructure and data safe is vital. Educating them about common cyber risks and making cybersecurity a major part of your business culture will help everyone take ownership of keeping your business data secure.
Antivirus
Malware evolves quickly. Hackers are continuously identifying vulnerabilities in installed applications and introducing new variants of malware to target them. This is one of the most common internal causes of data loss, so it’s essential to keep your anti-malware protection solution updated to protect against the latest threats. Backups should also be isolated enough that ransomware cannot encrypt every copy.
Offline backups
The National Cyber Security Centre recommends that businesses make regular offline backups of their data alongside their cloud-based backups. This is because offline data cannot be deleted or altered, meaning at least one of your backups will always be available. At least one copy should be offline or otherwise protected from the live network so ransomware cannot encrypt every backup. We can help you understand the options available and the best solution for your business.
How can BCDR help?
BCDR provides managed business continuity and disaster recovery to help businesses get back up and running quickly in the event of a critical data loss.
We enable SMEs to secure their networks and data. Our work centres on continuity: monitored backups and recovery paths that aim to limit downtime when something fails. Explore
backup and offsite DR,
file & folder backup and
SaaS backup.
Book a free consultation ·
[email protected] · 01386 898324
FAQs
How often should an SME back up?
Often enough that losing data since the last good backup is acceptable to the business (your recovery point objective). Many firms combine frequent incremental backups with regular restore tests.
Is cloud backup enough on its own?
Cloud offsite copies are valuable, but NCSC-aligned practice still favours an offline or strongly protected copy so a single account compromise or ransomware wave cannot destroy every version.
Where do Microsoft 365 backups fit?
SaaS data needs its own backup conversation — see our
Microsoft 365 / SaaS backup page — alongside server and file backups.
