Half of organizations have difficulty locating backup data when they need it, a new report revealed.Eon’s 2025 State of Cloud Backup report, published Tuesday, delves into how cloud backup management strategies have lagged behind the evolution of multi-cloud environments.“In nearly every conversation we have with cloud teams, they suddenly realize how outdated their backup strategy is. It happens when we ask a simple question: ‘Do you know what you’re backing up and whether it’s being backed up the right way?’” Eon President and Co-founder Gonen Stein stated in the report.A survey of 154 IT and cloud leaders conducted during Google Cloud Next 2025 in April found that 18% of respondents experienced cloud data loss and 22% were unsure whether they’ve lost cloud data or not. Additionally, 64% of data loss incidents were attributed to human error, and nearly a quarter were related to ransomware.Despite these losses, Eon found that many organizations still relied on manual processes and single-layer protections that do not account for evolving ransomware threats. For example, less than half (49%) or respondents used fully automated backup processes and only 29% utilized layered ransomware protection. Thirteen percent of respondents had no ransomware protection for their cloud backups at all.Additionally, adoption of solutions that streamline backup and recovery across multiple cloud environments is not catching up with multi-cloud adoption as a whole, Eon reports.Fortinet’s 2025 State of Cloud Security Report published in January found that 78% of organizations use multiple cloud providers, while Eon’s report found that 38% of respondents relied on individual cloud providers’ dedicated disaster recovery services for backup, or had no cloud backup in place at all.This reliance on disaster recovery services spread across different cloud providers leads to a fragmented posture that lacks consistent policy enforcement, visibility and recoverability, Eon said. This and other factors contribute to the finding that 50% of respondents struggle to locate their back up data when it is needed.Outdated and inefficient cloud backup strategies can not only lead to data loss that disrupts business continuity, but can also lead to costly compliance violations. Compliance requirements were cited as the top investment driver for cloud data backup solutions, and 54% of IT and cloud leaders said risks to compliance and security from mismanaged data were their top concern.Eon recommended organizations adopt more flexible and capable solutions that offer features such as AI-driven risk scoring, real-time detection of unprotected or misclassified resources, and seamless protection across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.Organizations are also encouraged to view backups not only as a safety net, but as a potential data resource that can help drive AI and analytics. This opportunity can be harnessed when cloud data backups are properly classified, queryable and instantly recoverable, said Eon.Effective data backup strategies are crucial in the current ransomware landscape, with Veeam’s Ransomware Trends Report 2024 finding that backup repositories were targeted in 96% of attacks and successfully breached in 76% of attacks, with data permanently lost in 43% of cases.
