One third do without backups

• Just under half regularly create backup copies of data on their computer or smartphone 
• Just 18 per cent know how to restore a backup

Berlin, 8 February 2024 - A laptop stolen on a train or malware that encrypts the entire hard drive and demands a ransom to restore it: anyone who doesn't have a backup copy of their important data is facing a real problem. Despite this, 33 per cent of those who use a computer or smartphone privately state that they do not use backups at all. Only 45 per cent make regular backups of their data - despite the fact that 51 per cent are afraid of losing important digital data irretrievably and a fifth (20 per cent) have already lost data due to a missing backup. 19 per cent also know someone who has lost data for this reason. This is the result of a survey conducted on behalf of the digital association Bitkom among 1,186 people in Germany aged 16 and over, including 1,079 users of a private computer or private smartphone. "Today, we only have a lot of important and personal information such as photos or texts in digital form. Backups of important data should therefore be a matter of course," says Felix Kuhlenkamp, Security Policy Officer at Bitkom. "The manufacturers of smartphone and computer operating systems are increasingly trying to make it as easy as possible to create backups as standard. Everyone should use these functions and supplement them with additional backups on different media for particularly important data."

Currently, 32 per cent store backups in the cloud, while 27 per cent use local media such as external hard drives or USB sticks for backups. However, creating a backup is not enough. Only 18 per cent know how to restore data from a backup. Kuhlenkamp: "Anyone who has not only backed up individual photos or texts, but also the entire contents of the computer or data from special programmes that use a database, for example, should find out in good time how this backup copy can be used again."