Arcserve, a pioneer in unified data resilience solutions, published the 2026 State of Data Resilience – a comprehensive, first-party market research report that reveals seven strategic priorities for 2027 data resilience planning and surprising facts about ransomware recovery readiness.Based on responses from more than 200 IT professionals and leaders across industries worldwide, the State of Data Resilience report delivers a data-driven assessment of where IT organizations stand on ransomware preparedness, recovery validation, infrastructure modernization, and AI adoption. While Arcserve sponsored the survey, respondents included users of other data resilience platforms.

The findings reveal a data resilience landscape defined by widening gaps – between confidence and capability, aspiration and deployment, and current coverage vs. actual risk exposure. The report identifies seven actionable priorities designed to guide 2027 budget and strategy planning for IT leaders.

Access the State of Data Resilience Study

• The new study is available here
• Additional exclusive statistics will be revealed at the Arcserve Data Resilience virtual event on June 11

The Confidence-Capability Gap
The distance between stated data recovery confidence and validated recovery capability is the most consequential theme of the State of Data Resilience report. Nearly two in three respondents (65.1%) expressed confidence that their organization could recover from a ransomware event within 48 hours. Recovery testing data tells a fundamentally different story.

• Only 35.4% of respondents met Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time objective (RTO) targets in the most recent full-recovery test
• 35.9% passed the test but outside the target timeframe – data recovery occurred, but not fast enough to meet operational or compliance commitments
• One in four respondents (24.1%) have never tested full recovery at all
• 4.6% reported that their most recent full-recovery test failed outright

In total, 64.6% of organizations either missed targets, never tested, or failed – despite the majority expressing confidence in recovery readiness.

Ransomware Is Active – Data Defenses Remain Incomplete
Ransomware is not a future risk for most organizations in the survey – it is a current and recent risk. More than half of respondents (52.3%) have experienced a ransomware event, and ransomware ranked as the top data resilience concern at 59.0%, above both budget and compliance.

Despite the frequency of events, critical defenses are severely lacking. Less than half (49.2%) have deployed immutable backup storage – the foundational control that prevents attackers from encrypting or deleting backup data. Regular restore testing stands at 34.9%. AI-based anomaly detection – identified as the highest-value AI use case by 57.9% of respondents – has been deployed by just 17.4%.

Infrastructure Complexity and the SaaS Data Blind Spot
The infrastructure landscape is defined by simultaneous change on multiple fronts. 72.3% of organizations are evaluating or actively planning hypervisor platform changes, primarily driven by licensing cost increases. 88.7% run two or more data protection tools, and 50.8% manage them workload-by-workload across separate solutions.

SaaS data protection remains an expanding blind spot. 19.0% of organizations have no SaaS data backup in place at all. Microsoft 365 data backup is the most widespread at 63.1%, but coverage drops sharply for identity, CRM, and collaboration platforms.

AI: High Aspiration, Low Deployment
90.3% of respondents engage with AI in IT operations or security – but only 29.2% have AI running in production workflows. The gap between aspiration and deployment is sharpest in the highest-value use case: 57.9% identify AI-based anomaly detection as the top application for backup and recovery, while only 17.4% have deployed it.

Seven Priorities for 2027 Data Resilience Strategy
The 2026 State of Data Resilience report identifies seven priorities that are actionable now and carry direct weight for 2027 IT planning:

1. Validate data recovery before relying on it: 64.6% of organizations have not demonstrated that their recovery posture works under realistic conditions
2. Close the immutability gap before the next event: 52.3% have experienced ransomware; only 49.2% have deployed immutable backup storage
3. Treat SaaS data as a first-class protection obligation: 19.0% have no SaaS backup coverage, and thin protection extends across identity and collaboration platforms
4. Resolve infrastructure complexity through strategic consolidation: 88.7% run two or more protection tools; consolidation reduces policy gaps and operational blind spots
5. Build toward AI-powered anomaly detection now: 57.9% identify anomaly detection as the highest-value use case; organizational readiness for deployment is already in place
6. Align resilience investment with insurance and compliance requirements: Insurance underwriting requirements for immutability and restore testing mirror the gaps the survey identifies
7. Protect hypervisor transitions with updated backup coverage: 72.3% planning changes carry a data protection continuity risk that requires validation before and after migration

“IT leaders have a huge requirement to be ready to recover organizational data after a ransomware attack, natural disaster, or basic outage. The large gaps in recovery readiness are clear in the State of Data Resilience report and, fortunately, the opportunities to remediate are equally clear and available. Today’s organizations can protect more data, apply AI for operational efficiency, and choose flexible recovery options across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments,” said Penny Gralewski, VP, marketing, Arcserve. “Start now with a health check of your current data resilience environment and make a plan to adopt more AI-enabled ransomware detection.”

About the Survey 
The 2026 Data Resilience Survey was conducted in Q1-Q2 2026 across a global pool of IT professionals and leaders. Respondents included IT administrators and infrastructure professionals (33.3%), IT leadership – CIOs, VPs, and Directors – (20.0%), value-added resellers (17.9%), managed service providers (7.2%), and backup and disaster recovery specialists (7.2%). Organizations with fewer than 500 employees represented 60.5% of the respondent base. Industries spanned technology and IT services (45.1%), manufacturing (9.2%), government and public sector (7.7%), financial services and insurance (6.2%), and healthcare (5.1%), among others.