Data Loss Impacts 40% of SaaS App Users

New research has found that 40% of Software as a Service (SaaS) users across a range of industries have lost data stored in their online tools. 

The survey by Rewind, a provider of cloud backups for SaaS applications, was commissioned ahead of World Backup Day on March 31. 

A total of 631 respondents answered questions related to how they use SaaS apps in a professional context.  

Key findings were that more than half (53 percent) of respondents use SaaS tools while at work, with some (43 percent) utilizing four or more apps.

Most users said that the data in their SaaS applications was either “somewhat” (47 percent) or “very” (42 percent) critical to the performance of their work. Despite this, more than half lacked vital knowledge regarding the security of that data.

“Many users (45 percent) still were not aware of the Shared Responsibility Model,” said a spokesperson for Rewind.

“They, therefore, do not realize that while SaaS providers actively back up their own cloud infrastructure, they do not make the account-level, business-critical information stored in their apps available to users.”

Under the shared responsibility model, service users and providers share portions of the security responsibilities between them, allowing the user to maintain a secure environment with less operational overhead. 

The model relies on each party’s clearly defining their security ownership and maintaining complete control over the assets, processes, and functions that they own.

“If I had known online tools don’t provide complete protection of my business’s data, I would have been backing up everything on day one,” said Matt Davis, owner of Whisker Seeker.

“The loss of vital data from our ecommerce store days before the holiday shopping season started nearly crippled our operation. It was the biggest nightmare of my life; one that I never want to happen again.”   

Sharing the findings, Rewind encouraged every business to review its current cloud data protection strategies and ensure that backups for primary business apps are in place. 

“We want every single day to be backup day,” said Mike Potter, CEO and co-founder of Rewind. “As business users entrust more and more of the data they rely on into the cloud with SaaS apps, understanding the associated risks and how to manage data loss is critical.”