Believe It or Not, There’s Cybersecurity That Goes Beyond Backups

TL; DR: “It always boils down to this: if we can’t stop them at the front door, we need to make sure we’ve got something in the back that we can recover from.” This is what Chris Rogers, the Senior Technology Evangelist at Zerto, believes. Zerto is a comprehensive disaster recovery, ransomware fighter, and data protection service that aims to stop bad actors in their tracks with round-the-clock data protection. At Zerto, rapid recovery is the name of the game.

I liken cybersecurity to a car accident. It’s an incident none of us want ever to experience but likely will at some point in our lives.

But whatever the type of accident, cars have preemptive safety measures — seatbelts, airbags, automatic braking, regulated child car seats, and built-in technologies like OnStar or eCall are all prime examples of how, even if the worst happens, the modern car is built like an offensive lineman.

Of course, this wasn’t always the case. To stay on the football reference, I think a few decades ago, cars were more like Adam Sandler in “The Waterboy” when all he did was give the players water and towels.

As recently as the 1990s, cars were essentially free-for-all tin boxes where, instead of safety, convenience and comfort were the number one priority. But as more people took to the road, more car accidents began to happen — so much so that automakers and regulators recognized the need for change.

Cybersecurity has followed a similar trajectory.

In the early days of the internet, protecting data and systems was more of an afterthought. But as cyberattacks became more frequent and damaging, the need for better security measures grew. I mean, consider this: The average cyberattack costs a small business around $200,000!

But the best way isn’t to just hope it doesn’t happen or back up all your files in a trusted vault — it’s having a plan in place. And the most crucial plan centers around quick recovery.

That’s what Zerto believes, at least. Zerto is a cybersecurity platform that specializes in disaster recovery and ransomware resilience on on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments.

Zerto is no stranger to developing a plan and defenses for any type of attack — or, as Chris Rogers, Zerto’s Senior Technology Evangelist, reiterated: “Any app, any cloud, any threat.”

I always like to start with numbers when talking about a new company.

Zerto, founded in 2009, had a clear mission from the beginning: to introduce a new type of data replication — a hypervisor-based replication, that is. This approach essentially makes several digital copies of data and constantly updates them as real-time changes are made, even though the data is stored across multiple locations.

The hypervisor plays a key role in Zerto’s model, allowing multiple virtual machines (VMs) to run on a single physical machine. When Zerto introduced this technology in 2011, it was unique because it was independent of hardware — meaning it works with any computer or storage system.

Fast forward to today: Zerto has served more than 9,500 customers across 70 countries with the support of 1,300 partners.

A few years ago, it also became part of HP Enterprise (HPE) — which is kind of a Michelin-star chef adding your recipe to his menu — so now, Zerto’s disaster recovery and protection services are available on all HPE platforms.

Interestingly, Chris, who joined Zerto five years ago, was originally one of those customers.

“I was in the sales pitch, and I thought this all sounded too good to be true. But then, when it rolled out, I realized it did exactly what they said. There was no hyperbole, no exaggeration — it was just perfect. Then, obviously, I fell in love with the product and decided to join the team,” he said.

So, what convinced Chris to make the switch?

For starters, he already understood the critical importance of cybersecurity, emphasizing, “As soon as you start storing data, and that data has value — which we all know it does — that’s when you need to prioritize protecting it.”

Whether it’s files, folders, AI data, or anything stored on virtual machines or infrastructure, Zerto focuses on protecting valuable data through three core strengths: ransomware resilience, fast disaster recovery, and multicloud mobility.

(And don’t worry — we’ll go over each one.)

At this point, cyberattacks might seem like something out of a horror story. But it’s not because, unlike the boogeyman in the closet or the monster under the bed, cyberthreats are real.

This can be especially detrimental for eCommerce stores.

“That immediate revenue loss from not selling just one product can spiral into a long-term loss,” Chris said. “That customer might have become a loyal one and made repeat purchases. Missing that one sale could end up costing you thousands in the long run.”

I’ll be honest — I’ve done the same before. And so has Chris.

Take the CrowdStrike incident that happened just a few weeks ago in July 2024. A faulty software update caused widespread problems with Microsoft Windows computers, leading to approximately 8.5 million systems crashing worldwide. There were tons of disruptions across dozens of industries, from banks and hospitals to airlines.

In fact, Chris said he experienced this frustration firsthand as a consumer.

“I was trying to book a vacation. It was a couple of days after the incident — it happened on a Friday — and I was on an app that kept throwing errors. I thought, okay, let me check the website. Same thing. Then I saw the banner: ‘We’re still experiencing issues from the IoT outage on Friday.’ I was like, how? It’s two days later, and you still haven’t recovered? I ended up booking somewhere else because, as a customer, I didn’t want to deal with that.”

Of course, everybody makes mistakes and sometimes errors happen. After all, Chris said it’s not a matter of if cyberattackers come — it’s a matter of when.

Chris emphasized that companies can no longer rely solely on traditional backup systems; they need agile, up-to-date solutions that keep pace with evolving cyberthreats.

So, what are they?

The sad truth is that cyberthreats are becoming the norm because what used to be as simple as backing up your data on a trusted hard drive or the cloud is no longer enough. That’s what we call a single point of failure — which is about as risky as hiding all your life savings in cash under your bed instead of in several bank accounts or, at the very least, in a secure safe.

Companies that haven’t updated their internal infrastructures, especially security measures, are at greater risk.

“Backup and recovery tools aren’t the sexiest products — they haven’t been the focus of budgets over the last decade. But now, people are realizing these tools are the cornerstone of resilience,” Chris said. “It’s tedious but worth the effort. We need to get better at it, especially when it comes to data protection.”

You wouldn’t leave your doors unlocked and act surprised when your house gets robbed, so don’t do the same thing for your business. Try Zerto for free today.