They Had Backups. So How Did They Lose Everything? 

Their data was backed up by their IT provider. Or at least, that’s what they thought. 

It only took one day for everything to fall apart. 

Their IT provider was hit by a supply chain cyberattack. Tools were compromised. Clients were exposed. Data was locked down and held for ransom. 

So, they did what anyone would do. They went to restore their data from their backups. Backups they’d been paying for… for four years. 

The IT company sent an intern over to check on the backups. It didn’t take long to dig through. 

The backups were not even running. No monitoring. No alerts. Nothing. 

No one had ever clicked “Start.” 

Four years of data, completely unrecoverable. Paperwork, legal documents, and more all gone. All because of a simple human error. And it didn’t show itself until the worst possible moment.  

But was this avoidable? 

Absolutely. 

What Went Wrong 

What makes situations like this difficult is that they are not always the result of negligence.  

In many cases, everything appears to be in place on the surface. Backups were sold, configured, and likely assumed to be running without issue. Over time, that assumption simply goes unchallenged. 

In this case, the gap came down to a lack of verification and redundancies.  

The system had been set up, but it was never consistently monitored or tested. There were no alerts in place to indicate failure, and no regular checks to confirm that backups were actually working as expected. What started as a small oversight quietly snowballed into a major risk. 

Imagine you have an analog alarm clock set to go off every morning at 6:00 AM. It’s automatic, so you never really think about it. But after one too many nights worrying about the power going out, you set a second automatic alarm on your phone for 6:30 AM, just in case.  

That is the minimum level of redundancy necessary for IT management.  

This is where many businesses find themselves lacking today. Backups exist, but there is limited visibility into whether they are functioning. They are treated as a checkbox rather than an active process. As long as nothing goes wrong, there is no immediate reason to question it. 

Backup failures usually do not show themselves during normal operations. They reveal themselves at the exact moment they are needed most. By then, the window to fix the problem has already passed. 

Unfortunately, mistakes like these are very common now. Systems are put in place correctly at one point in time, but without ongoing oversight, they drift. Changes happen. Failures occur. Data is lost. 

Catalyst IT Steps In 

After this business had lost their data, they reached out to Catalyst IT. 

They asked us, “Can you help us recover our data?” The honest answer was no. That data was gone, and there was no way to bring it back. But that wasn’t the end of the conversation. 

We couldn’t recover what was lost, but we could stop it from ever happening again. 

The biggest failure in their previous system wasn’t human failure. It was the absence of checks and balances. 

At Catalyst IT we follow the 3-2-1 backup rule: 3 copies of your data, 2 copies on different media sources, and 1 copy offsite. Our clients’ data is encrypted and stored offsite in a secure data center facility.  

Our backup systems are checked regularly and monitored daily. If something were to fail, we would be notified immediately, and the error would be resolved quickly.  

Today, this business’s data is properly protected and their systems are actively managed.  

Are your backups working? 

If you’re not 100% sure your backups will work when it matters, it might be worth a simple & free check by Catalyst IT. 

Want to read more case studies like this one? Check out some more IT stories here.