Immutable Backups
With cyber attacks becoming more sophisticated by the day, businesses cannot afford to rely on backups that can potentially be compromised. Cyber criminals know that many companies that have IT and cybersecurity strategies in place likely also have backup systems in place, which is why, when they target businesses, they are now also seeking to encrypt, delete, or corrupt these backups to maximise damage.
Ensuring the resilience of your backups as part of your overall cybersecurity and business continuity strategy is absolutely vital, and one of the most powerful protections you can deploy to protect you from the worst happening is ensuring that your backups are "immutable".
What Are Immutable Backups?
Immutable backups (sometimes called fixed or locked backups) are backups that, once written, cannot be modified, deleted or overwritten for a specified retention period. Traditional backups that can be accessed, edited and potentially encrypted, remain vulnerable if an attacker gains access. Immutable backups use "write-once-read-many" (WORM) technologies to guarantee that the data in the backup cannot be tampered with, even by high-level administrators.
What this means is that even if malware, ransomware or an insider threat gained sufficient privileges to reach your backup, they cannot change or erase the protected restore points. Therefore, you can still restore/recover in the event of an attack or a natural disaster.
Why Do Immutable Backups Matter?
Modern ransomware campaigns target backup systems as part of the initial attack to cause the most disruption to a business. The thought process of a cyber criminal is that if a company cannot recover from an attack, it is more likely to pay.
With immutable backups, you retain clean restore points that cannot be tampered with. This means that even if your business data is encrypted, you will be able to gain access to the data and restore your systems with no ransom payment.
Ensuring Regulatory Compliance & Auditability
Many industries (such as healthcare, finance, legal, and others) require data retention in a verifiable and, most importantly, tamper-proof state. Immutable backups not only provide a trusted chain of custody and demonstrate that data hasn't been modified during its retention period but can also act as a digital change log/version history within incremental backups of changes made over time.
Protection From Insider Threats (Or Human Error)
Threats to backup integrity do not come solely from external threats. Remember, the most vulnerable part of your cybersecurity strategy is the human element. Whether it be a malicious insider looking to launch an attack, a disgruntled employee looking to delete files, or just human mistakes, all of these potential inside threats can undermine the data that is being backed up. Immutable backups guard against these by making the restore points immune to deletion or modification, regardless of user access rights.
Speedier Recovery
If a cyber attack hits your business, getting back up and running quickly is crucial. For example, companies like Jaguar Land Rover and M&S faced weeks or even months of disruption after attacks in 2025. Immutable backups help you recover faster because they are regularly checked and always trustworthy. This means you can restore your data from a clean backup right away, reducing delays and data loss. Our backup tools also make it easy to move your services to the cloud if your local servers are damaged or unavailable.
How Immutable Backups Fit into Your Business Continuity Strategy?
At TwentyFour IT, we enable immutability as standard across our managed backup services, meaning all of your business data gains that extra layer of protection.
Many modern backup systems let you turn on immutability, which your IT provider can set up for you. But if you haven't checked your backup setup recently, you might not have this feature—and even if you do, it's essential to make sure backup monitoring and regular data checks are in place. Reviewing your backup solution should be part of your regular IT and business continuity planning.
But what should you focus on?
- Choose storage that supports immutable backups, such as cloud object storage or dedicated on-site devices.
- If you keep backups on-site, make sure you have a hardware-based backup (e.g., RAID), so your data is safe even if a disk fails.
- Set how long your backups should stay unchangeable, and how often to make incremental/new backups, based on your industry rules and business needs.
- Include immutable backups in your overall backup plan; keep copies off-site or air-gapped, following the 3-2-1 rule (three copies, two types of storage, one off-site).
- Don't rely on cloud storage alone - it isn't a backup. Always back up your cloud data, too.
- Set up automatic monitoring, alerts, and regular recovery tests to make sure your backup data works when you need it.
At TwentyFour IT, we turn on immutability by default in our managed backup services, so all your business data gets this extra protection.
Ready to Strengthen Your Backup Defence?
If you'd like to discover how TwentyFour IT can help you implement immutable backups as part of your cyber-resilience and business continuity strategy, get in touch today. Our team will review your current backup strategy, identify gaps, outline a protection roadmap explicitly designed for the evolving cyber threat landscape, and ensure that it aligns with your business continuity strategy.
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