Q3 of 2024 closed with a string of incidents that should make any IT or security lead sleep poorly. The common thread was not just intrusion or encryption. It was how attackers treated backups as a target or a single point of failure, and how organizations discovered post-incident that their recovery plans were brittle. Below I walk through representative events from the quarter and extract practical, implementable advice for teams that actually run backups and restore operations.

The headlines that mattered

A public agency in the United States faced a disruptive ransomware event in late August that encrypted parts of its systems and forced widespread isolation of infrastructure. Operations that depend on online systems such as check-in kiosks and passenger displays were affected while investigators worked to confirm what data, if any, had been exfiltrated. The agency publicly stated it refused to pay the ransom and leaned on containment plus recovery.

At the software and tools layer, a critical remote code execution vulnerability in a widely used backup and replication product was disclosed and patched in early September. The flaw carried a high CVSS score and drew immediate attention because backup servers are high-value targets: compromise them and attackers can deny or poison recovery. Early public reporting and vendor patching pushed this into urgent operational work for anyone running that product.

In the same window, a major urban transport authority in Europe limited internal systems and customer-facing online services after detecting suspicious activity. The authority emphasized there was no evidence of impact to public transport operations but still enacted staff identity checks and temporary service restrictions while they investigated and rebuilt trust in their internal systems. That kind of step illustrates the trade-off organizations make between preserving public service and protecting data integrity.

Retail and enterprise victims continued to surface: one large retailer disclosed unauthorized access to parts of its IT environment in late August, locking down email and accounts while external investigators helped contain the threat. Public filings and vendor advisories repeatedly showed that initial containment often involves taking systems offline, which in turn exposes the importance of tested, reliable restores.

Why backups were central to the scare factor

1) Backup software is high value. The product-level vulnerability patched in September illustrated this. Backup servers often run with elevated privileges, have broad network access, and hold copies of the crown jewels. A critical flaw there is an attacker’s fast lane to both exfiltrate and destroy recovery data.

2) Operational recovery rarely matches tabletop plans. Many organizations discovered that either recent backups were incomplete, or restores failed in test conditions, or that backups were accessible from the same network an attacker had already compromised. The result is painful: a nominally robust backup policy does not buy you time if your restore procedures are untested or your recovery targets are unrealistic. (See the retailer and public agency incidents above.)

3) Attackers combine exfiltration and backup destruction. The refusal to pay ransom by some victims led attackers to threaten publication of stolen data. That tactic raises the bar on defenses: even if you can restore from a pristine offline copy, the reputational and regulatory damage from exfiltrated data persists. Designing for confidentiality and for immutable retention both matter.

Where Spanning and SaaS backup fit in

SaaS backup vendors continue to update and add features that assist restores and limit operation friction, and some vendors released product-level improvements in September to make restores safer and more predictable. At the same time, users and partners reminded the community that vendor operations, billing, and support experience also matter during incidents. When an incident forces rapid restores or account actions, the responsiveness of the backup vendor and clarity of ownership for retained copies can be the difference between an orderly recovery and chaos.

Practical checklist for resilience (real, low-friction steps)

  • Treat backup infrastructure as crown-jewel hosts. Restrict network exposure, avoid public-facing management ports, and do not domain-join backup servers unless you understand the implications.
  • Patch backup software quickly but test before mass rollout. When a critical patch is released, put it through a rapid staging validation on nonproduction systems and then schedule prioritized rollout.
  • Implement immutable and air-gapped copies. Use immutable object storage or offline snapshots for your critical retention windows. Immutable copies reduce the chance an attacker can delete or encrypt everything.
  • Zero-trust access for backup admin operations. Require MFA, conditional access, and jump hosts for any admin path into backup management planes.
  • Assume exfiltration. Encrypt data at rest in backups and rotate access keys. Logging of read access to backup repositories is as important as protecting writes.
  • Frequent, auditable restore drills. A backup that sits on tape or in a bucket is only useful if restores are verified against Recovery Time Objectives and Recovery Point Objectives. Test restores under simulated incident conditions, including restores to alternate infrastructure.
  • Vendor due diligence and runbooks. Know how your backup vendor executes restores, data deletion requests, and cross-region failover. Maintain an incident playbook with contacts and escalation paths for critical vendors.

Short technical notes for teams that run restores

  • Validate file-level and object-level integrity after a restore, not just booting a VM. Small metadata mismatches can break production services.
  • Keep at least one recovery copy that cannot be modified over its retention window. If your provider supports immutability windows, enforce them for critical datasets.
  • Monitor for anomalous read or list operations on backup repositories. A spike in bulk reads followed by configuration changes is a red flag.
  • Treat backup credentials like production credentials. Rotate keys, use short-lived tokens, and log all operations centrally.

Final thought

Q3 2024 bought several reminders: backups are not a checkbox. They are a capability that needs its own security posture, testing cadence, and supplier strategy. The spooky part is human: organizations often discover backup weaknesses during an emergency. That is avoidable. Patch, isolate, test, and rehearse restores like you would any other critical operation. If you build recovery muscles now, the next incident will be an inconvenience rather than an existential one.