75% of organizations say they would pay a ransom to recover data, yet only 2% can fully restore operations within 24 hours.

— The State of Data Security and Management Report, 2024

Cyber threats don’t just target live systems—they exploit the gaps in backup and recovery strategies. While enterprises invest heavily in firewalls, endpoint detection, and zero-trust frameworks, attacks evolve, learn to bypass the latest defenses and find their way to crown jewel data. The result? Ransomware campaigns that lock down critical assets, compliance failures that expose sensitive records, and recovery delays that cripple operations.

But the real challenge isn’t just preventing an attack. It’s ensuring that when one happens, data remains accessible, uncompromised, and rapidly recoverable.

The Security Blind Spot: Data Protection Isn’t Security—Until It’s Too Late

Many organizations assume backup data is inherently safe—after all, it’s stored separately from production environments and secured by traditional data protection tools. But cybercriminals know better. Backups are now prime targets for ransomware, data exfiltration, and compliance violations. Attackers don’t just encrypt live systems—they compromise backups first, ensuring organizations have no clear recovery path.

This creates two major risks:

  • Vulnerable Backups as a Breach Entry Point – Attackers infiltrate backup environments, modifying or corrupting stored data before launching ransomware attacks. This ensures that even recovered data remains compromised, forcing organizations into costly ransom payments or prolonged downtime.
  • Compliance Failures Hidden in Storage – Backup environments often contain sensitive, regulated data that lacks security oversight. Without proper classification, policy enforcement, or visibility into risk, organizations fail audits, violate regulations, and remain exposed to penalties.

With data protection alone no longer enough, organizations need a smarter approach—one that integrates data security posture management (DSPM) with cyber resilience to protect, govern, and recover all data, wherever it lives.

How BigID and Cohesity Solve This Challenge

BigID and Cohesity deliver an integrated data security solution that addresses the critical gaps between backup operations and security controls. This partnership extends BigID’s industry-leading Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) capabilities to Cohesity’s backup and recovery platform, creating a comprehensive approach to data resilience.

Complete Visibility Across Your Data Landscape

The integrated solution provides organizations with unparalleled visibility into sensitive data across both production and backup environments. BigID’s advanced AI and ML-based discovery and classification automatically catalogs regulated, sensitive, and critical information, while Cohesity DataProtect tracks backup coverage and recovery readiness. This unified view eliminates security blind spots by mapping where sensitive data exists and identifying which assets lack proper protection.

Proactive Risk Detection and Remediation

Unlike traditional backup solutions that focus solely on data recovery, the BigID-Cohesity integration identifies security gaps before breaches occur. Organizations can detect:

  • Sensitive data stores without properly configured backup policies
  • Protected data with inadequate security controls
  • Compliance violations within backup repositories
  • Potential exposure risks based on anomalous access patterns

Accelerated, Informed Recovery

During cyber incidents, organizations must quickly determine which systems to prioritize for recovery. The BigID-Cohesity solution enhances incident response by:

  • Providing context about which backup sets contain sensitive information
  • Helping security teams identify the scope and impact of potential data breaches
  • Enabling faster, more informed recovery decisions based on data criticality
  • Supporting compliance-driven recovery strategies that prioritize regulated data

These contextual insights elevate recovery from a purely technical task to a strategic response, ensuring alignment with business risk priorities.

Simplified Compliance Management

The integrated solution streamlines compliance efforts by automating the discovery, classification, and protection of regulated data across backup environments. Organizations can enforce security policies that align with frameworks like NIST, CISA, and PCI, while generating comprehensive audit reports that verify compliance with data protection requirements. This approach reduces the compliance burden while strengthening overall security posture.

New Standard for Data Security and Cyber Resilience

Enterprises can no longer afford to treat backup and recovery as separate from security. With threats evolving faster than traditional defenses, ensuring continuous protection across all data environments—production, backup, and beyond—is critical.

That’s why the conversation around data security needs to shift—from just securing the perimeter to ensuring resilience at every stage of the data lifecycle.

Learn how BigID and Cohesity are closing the security gap in backup and recovery.

Download the Solution Brief or Book a Demo to see how this approach transforms data security.