6 Leading Causes of Cloud Data Loss [Forrester Research]

It’s no secret that the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market is growing strong each quarter. Forrester Research Inc. predicts the market will grow to $157 billion in 2020. However, it may surprise you that these popular SaaS apps do not include native backup and disaster recovery.

According to a recent research report from Forrester, one of the most influential research and advisory firms in the world, leveraging a cloud-to-cloud backup solution is the only true guarantee your critical SaaS business data is protected. From what exactly? Here are the most common forms of SaaS data loss:

1. Accidental deletion: While this is the most basic cause of data loss, it’s also the most common.
2. Departing employees: As employees leave your organization, what happens to the data associated with their accounts in your SaaS application? If you need to retain their data, you’ll need to pay ongoing licensing fees for inactive accounts.
3. Hackers: Every news cycle brings a new story of a cyberattack. Criminals often target on-premises systems, but ransomware and other malware also impact critical data in SaaS applications.
4. Malicious insiders: Whether it’s a disgruntled employee, a resentful contractor, or some other insider with the intention to do harm, malicious users are another common cause of data loss.
5. Rogue applications: What happens when the app that’s supposed to consolidate duplicate records accidentally deletes or corrupts unique records?
6. SaaS providers’ prolonged outage: An unexpected, prolonged SaaS provider outage can cripple your business.

At the end of the day, businesses are responsible for protecting their own SaaS data. Cloud-to-cloud backup applications, like Backupify for Office 356 and the G Suite, are the only way organizations can be certain they’ll be able to restore deleted or corrupted cloud-based data.