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Nearly 45% of organizations lack confidence in their ransomware defenses despite increased adoption of backup protection, disaster recovery planning, and security awareness training, according to a new report from Proofpoint.Ransomware attacks decline as defenses improveThe 2027 Ransomware Report from Proofpoint’s MSP Platform business unit, which serves managed service providers (MSPs) and SMBs, found that while organizations are better prepared for ransomware attacks than ever before, there remains a gap in confidence in their protection measures.The report surveyed 400 global IT and cybersecurity experts and included key findings such as:Ransomware incidence has fallen from 24% to 18% among respondents.Ransomware prevention is widespread, with 91% protecting their backups and 84% having a disaster recovery plan.52% of respondents affected by ransomware cite email or phishing as the attack vector.Security awareness has increased, with 84% offering training, up 10% from the year prior.Few ransomware victims report paying attackersOf those that have experienced an attack, only 3% say that a ransom was paid to recover their data.“Companies have noticeably stepped up their ransomware defenses: secure backups, disaster recovery, and security awareness training are now part of the security foundation in many organizations, which is an important step,” says Daniel Hofmann, GM & EVP of Proofpoint MSP Platform.Protected backups and effective recovery processes are essential for organizations to access their data intact and resume operations after a successful ransomware attack.“For organizations, this means that achieving a certain level of security once is not enough. Security awareness, technical safeguards, and security processes must keep pace with new and evolving attack methods,” Hofmann added.AI-powered phishing raises new security concernsAccording to the report, 84% of respondents say that generative AI has heightened their organization’s concerns about cyberattacks and ransomware.Further, only 9% believe their staff would reliably recognize an AI-generated phishing or identity-spoofing attempt.“Our day-to-day work reveals how quickly attackers are evolving their methods,” said Hofmann. “They use AI to make their attempts at deception more convincing, combine email with other communication tools in multi-channel attacks, or employ new obfuscation techniques to circumvent security mechanisms.”What the findings mean for MSPsFor MSPs and other channel partners, the findings highlight an opportunity to help customers move beyond implementing basic security measures toward validating their effectiveness. As AI-driven phishing and other attack methods evolve, partners can differentiate their services through ongoing security assessments, employee training, and tested backup and recovery processes that help customers build greater confidence in their ransomware readiness.WATCH MORE: Optiv executives detail how AI has changed the company’s approach to security services.

Insider threats remain one of the biggest security challenges facing businesses, with 90% of organisations experiencing at least one insider incident in the last twelve months. Yet the insider threats most businesses are preparing for are increasingly outdated: a disgruntled employee, a compromised account or someone making a costly mistake.Those risks are still real, but the picture is now much broader – and harder to protect from. AI agents and other machine identities are increasingly being given authorised access to business systems and even taking actions on organisations’ behalf. In fact, machine identities now outnumber human identities by 109 to one.As these tools become a part of everyday work, businesses need to think much more broadly about who – or what – counts as an insider threat. Keeping an organisation secure now means rethinking not just which people can access sensitive data, but which systems can too. When the insider isn’t humanAI agents differ from conventional software because they can operate with some degree of autonomy, interpreting objectives and selecting actions without human oversight at every step. This does offerhuge productivity benefits, but it also means that a tool with excessive permissions can cause significant security problems extremely quickly.Mark Molyneux, Field CTO at Commvault, explains: “Insider threats are spreading beyond the human domain and into the autonomous one. In a relatively short time, AI agents have evolved from productivity tools into systems with authorised access and greater decision-making capabilities. Recent incidents have shown the consequences, with agents bypassing controls designed to contain them in pursuit of their goals.”“As the extent of what these tools can do becomes clearer, their permissions need to be controlled more tightly,” he adds. “Their access should be limited to what is specifically needed to carry out a task, with human approval required for anything that crosses that boundary, no matter how harmless it may seem.”The challenge is also that AI agents remain vulnerable to the same human errors that have long been behind insider risk. These mistakes are amplified significantly when an AI is then able to act repeatedly at speed.“Microsoft’s own AI research division exposed 38 terabytes of internal data through a single access token that was scoped to an entire storage account instead of the intended bucket, and set to full control instead of read only,” says Bertijn Eldering, associate sales engineer at HackerOne. “What came with it included workstation backups, service passwords, secret keys and more than 30,000 internal Teams messages. Agents are provisioned by the same people under the same delivery pressure, and they then act repeatedly and at machine speed.”Getting access rightSo how can organisations tackle this growing challenge? Neil Jenkins, Chief Product Officer at Fastmail, argues that managing and reducing access for every identity – not just the human ones – is key. “Strong authentication is a fundamental part of managing insider risk, but it’s only the first line of defence,” he says. “Businesses also need to apply the principle of least privilege, giving employees access only to what they need and making it easy to flag suspicious activity. Increasingly, that same thinking needs to apply to AI agents.”“Like King Midas, an AI agent can give you exactly what you asked for, but not necessarily in the way you intended. Agents need tightly defined permissions, clear boundaries and appropriate monitoring so that an unexpected route to completing a task doesn’t become a security vulnerability.”Eldering stresses the importance of traceability: “The more challenging issue is attribution. AI systems often arrive with their own logging, which can be less mature than the platforms around them. If you cannot separate an authorised automated workflow from a person misusing one, you have lost the signal that insider threat programmes depend on.”“The answer to combating this challenge is practical. Give agents their own identities and scope them to a single task. Keep an audit trail you would be willing to defend in an investigation. Treat every change to a tool, model or integration as a change to your exposure, test that continuously rather than at review points, and keep a human in the loop for the judgement calls.”Prepare for controls to failIdentity controls, strict permissions and monitoring reduce exposure, but the truth is that no action can protect a business entirely. Recovery must therefore be seen as an integral part of insider threat management.Commvault’s Molyneux advises: “AI is unpredictable by design so businesses should operate on the assumption that controls may fail and prepare accordingly to minimise downtime and reputational damage. With 90% of businesses saying they need identity management improvements to address AI-related risks, a ResOps model that brings identity, security and recovery together, whilst monitoring for unexpected activity, is essential.”He continues: “Organisations should also maintain a recovery environment isolated from live systems, so that critical data and the backups required to restore it remain protected. Adopting this approach and preparing in advance allows businesses to respond quickly if an incident does occur.”Isolation matters because a backup connected to the same environment can be altered or deleted by an insider, or an autonomous system with sufficient access. Keeping a known-good copy offline adds a physical barrier that network permissions alone cannot provide.Carlos Sandoval Castro, IBM Worldwide Tape Offering Manager, the LTO Program, explains: “Tape storage is particularly well suited to this because data stored on offline tape is physically separated from connected infrastructure. Once a tape cartridge has been removed from the drive and securely stored, an insider – whether a compromised account, malicious employee or autonomous system – cannot remotely access, alter, or delete the data. Access requires someone to be physically present and able to retrieve and load the media.”He adds: “This physical air gap can therefore provide an important additional layer of protection within a broader cyber resilience strategy. It helps organisations preserve a known-good copy of critical data that remains available for recovery even if production and connected backup environments have been compromised – a must-have when getting back to business-as-usual.”Trust in an AI worldThe rise of AI agents does not mean that traditional insider threats have disappeared. Employees, contractors and partners can still make mistakes, have their credentials compromised or deliberately misuse access. However, what’s different now is the number and type of identities within organisations, and the speed at which an error can spread. A modern insider threat programme must therefore govern both people and machines together. Strong authentication, individual identities, least-privilege access, human approval for sensitive actions and reliable audit trails can reduce the likelihood of an incident. And isolated recovery copies and rehearsed response plans can limit the damage if those controls do fail.

Enthusiasm doesn’t run AI workloads – infrastructure does. As more organizations adopt AI, limitations in existing facilities are surfacing: insufficient power, cooling shortfalls, operational complexities, and new security risks. If these needs aren’t addressed, AI initiatives will stall, become hard to scale, or, worse, put sensitive data at risk.AI can enable growth and long-term competitiveness, but only when leaders honestly evaluate readiness against what’s already in place, the investment strategy, and the plan for future demand. Getting this wrong isn’t a minor setback; it’s the difference between an AI investment that delivers and one that never gets off the ground. Before committing budget, use these five steps to pinpoint where infrastructure improvements are needed.1. Set the Right FoundationAI performance depends on the infrastructure behind it. Servers, storage, and networks must handle high compute density and large data flows without overheating or failing. Even capable AI systems underperform if foundational elements lag.Related:The Next Generation of AI Infrastructure Design Starts with EfficiencyConsider a quality inspection use case on a production line. Cameras, storage, and compute must match the conveyor’s speed with real-time inference. If the pipeline can’t keep up, defective products slip through. The same principle applies inside the data center: a faster GPU cluster can be throttled by storage throughput, network congestion, or thermal limits.This requires businesses to evaluate how systems work together rather than in isolation.2. Prioritize Power and Cooling CapacityA careful examination of power capacity and cooling infrastructure is necessary to determine whether an organization’s technology infrastructure can support the heavy lifting required by AI workloads. A rack designed for 5 kW won’t serve a 20-kW AI node. Without enough power behind it, an AI rollout can stall before it even starts.Reliable power delivery matters just as much as capacity, and organizations must assess how much power their current environment can consistently supply and whether their cooling systems can handle the additional heat generated. Power supply and cooling must scale together to sustain continuous AI processing. A gap in either undermines the system.3. Establish Security Across the AI EnvironmentAI applications often process sensitive and proprietary data. Protecting those assets requires several layers of security, including physical security, network defenses, and access controls. A gap in any of these layers can expose the rest, putting sensitive information at risk.Related:Property Tax: The Value Driver that AI Data Centers OverlookOrganizations should also assess AI-specific risks, including model manipulation and data leakage, as well as any regulatory and policy obligations for their sector. A comprehensive approach protects both the underlying infrastructure and the AI environment it supports, treating security as foundational rather than an add-on.4. Decide Between Predictable and Flexible CostsDifferent organizations value cost predictability in different ways. Some need steady, predictable spending to manage budgets, while others prioritize agility and can accept variability. Neither approach is right or wrong; the choice depends on the organization’s infrastructure strategy and financial priorities, which in turn determine how to approach AI spending.Shifting cloud pricing can add uncertainty. Align finance and engineering early to avoid mismatches – organizations that require budget certainty shouldn’t be surprised by variable bills, and those that value flexibility shouldn’t overpay for guarantees they don’t need.Getting this alignment right from the outset means that AI spending decisions support the broader financial strategy rather than work against it. As AI adoption grows, FinOps principles help set guardrails while preserving room for innovation.Related:The Corrosion Blind Spot in the AI Buildout5. Build Room to GrowAI workloads rarely stay static. Demand can grow as organizations expand existing applications, introduce new use cases, or experience increased usage tied to broader organizational growth. Infrastructure built for today’s workload can quickly become a constraint tomorrow.This requires organizations to increase processing capacity and storage while also expanding the networks and cooling systems that support them. Scalability should be part of the infrastructure design from the outset. Building that flexibility gives the organization a way to respond as its AI requirements evolve.From Readiness to ResultsAI investments depend on infrastructure that supports them from initial deployment through future growth. IT leaders can use this five-part framework to identify where their current environment falls short and prioritize the improvements needed to support their AI plans. Before committing to the next AI purchase, assess readiness and close gaps – or risk becoming the reason initiatives fail to deliver.

This has been the year of the Great Storage Squeeze, where everyone -- from consumers looking to upgrade to the latest phones and computers, to the largest enterprises planning to refresh their fleets of data center servers and storage systems -- has been impacted by unprecedented supply issues and the resulting significant price increases for the storage and memory components that are foundational to our digital lives.The root cause of the issue is well understood: Hyperscale cloud and frontier AI builders are buying up enormous quantities of flash and DRAM to support exploding, and increasingly data-intensive, AI use globally. But this fact has not made the impact of the squeeze on the average enterprise any less severe. Out of the blue, IT leaders worldwide have been forced to revisit, recalibrate and, in some cases, completely revise their infrastructure plans for this year and beyond. At a moment when there are significant additional pressures on IT leadership and operations -- from scaling their own AI initiatives, evolving their virtualization architectures, dealing with cyberthreats and generally managing global instability -- the timing could hardly have been worse. Storage shortage shrinks budgets, reshapes strategiesAt Omdia, a division of Informa TechTarget, we wanted to understand how IT infrastructure leaders have been impacted by, and are dealing with, the storage squeeze. Why? It was clear from the outset that this was very different to the typical, cyclical, supply chain blip. With no rapid resolution likely, the impacts would extend beyond the short term. Given this, it seemed likely that many IT organizations would be forced into considering actions that extend beyond the immediate and into the strategic dimension.The results of that study have now been published, and I'm happy to share a few highlights:All organizations are impacted, many severely, and there's no immediate sign of improvement. The study revealed that price increases for memory and storage had moderately or severely impacted the current IT budgets for 87% of respondents. Most organizations said they are not expecting a significant improvement anytime soon, with 77% believing shortages will continue to have a significant or moderate impact over the next 12-18 months. Of concern is the fact that almost three-quarters of respondents (74%) said the shortage is slowing their ability to deploy AI infrastructure on-premises. Organizations are utilizing multiple strategies to "muddle through" in the first instance. Ever-resourceful IT leaders are resorting to multiple tactics to minimize the impact of rising prices and limited availability in the near term. Deferring noncritical purchases, taking spend from other lines in the IT budget, sweating existing storage assets for longer than planned and tapping into cloud-based storage as a temporary bridge are all popular choices for IT leaders looking to make near-term savings wherever they can. A renewed emphasis on efficiency is reshaping longer-term strategies. Eighty percent of respondents said they are now looking to improve the efficiency of their overall infrastructure. Storage efficiency technologies are not new, but in a time of significant price inflation, they have moved from nice-to-have to critical. Note that although this includes system-level efficiency capabilities, such as deduplication and compression, many respondents are evaluating alternative approaches altogether. Considerations here include advanced tiering technologies that enable data to flow seamlessly across different classes of media -- for example, from flash to HDD to cloud or even tape; offerings that consolidate multiple infrastructure types, such as primary, secondary and backup/archiving, into fewer physical systems; and software-defined storage options that enable customers to separate data and storage management from the underlying hardware. And for many, the squeeze has only intensified their desire to move more of their environment to the public cloud. 74% of respondents said the shortage is slowing their ability to deploy AI infrastructure on-premises.A key theme emerging from the research is that the timing, magnitude and duration of the Great Storage Squeeze of 2026 have had a profound impact on many IT leaders. While doing their best to ameliorate a difficult situation in the short term, they also want to be better prepared if, or when, this happens again.As a result, longstanding assumptions about the underlying dynamics of the storage and memory market -- namely, that availability will always be plentiful, and that prices will always fall -- have been challenged, indeed reversed. Accordingly, IT and infrastructure leaders are revisiting how they plan and build their data and storage environments, as well as other critical aspects, such as how they procure infrastructure, how they work with suppliers and so on.Finally, for now, the research highlighted one further nugget: This shortage has exposed a lack of deep understanding about the nature of the actual data the typical enterprise stores. In a time of unprecedented price rises, the huge volumes of dark data that many organizations retain translate into a massive cost. It's also a huge, untapped opportunity and potential source of significant risk.I'll dive deeper into our findings here in my next post. For now, though, the Great Storage Squeeze of 2026 certainly has made its mark and will continue to shape IT strategies for the foreseeable future.Simon Robinson is principal analyst covering infrastructure at Omdia.Omdia is a division of Informa TechTarget. Its analysts have business relationships with technology vendors.

Magnetic Storage Bubble: The Linear Tape-Open (LTO) format was designed back in the 90s as an open-standard alternative to proprietary tape formats. Now, the magnetic storage technology is growing in both relevance and shipment volumes because AI companies can't seem to stop gobbling up digital data for LLM training and inference workloads. The now-defunct DOGE initiative tried to get rid of magnetic tapes for alleged efficiency reasons, but the "legacy" storage format is now more popular than ever. According to the LTO Consortium, the combined shipped capacity of LTO-compatible media experienced substantial growth during the first quarter of the year. And things could have been even better if geopolitical uncertainties hadn't affected the market and companies' business goals.Consisting of HPE, IBM, and Quantum Corporation, the LTO Consortium works to promote and license LTO Ultrium technology to interested manufacturers. The organization recently said that LTO capacity shipments in Q1 2026 grew by 57% compared to the same period in 2025, demonstrating that magnetic tape remains a resilient business and demand for tape-based solutions keeps rising.Quantum CEO Hugues Meyrath highlighted how organizations are dealing with unprecedented growth in digital data and related workloads. Combined with rising hardware and power costs and increasing pressure to build more resilient cyber operations, data growth is forcing enterprises to adopt long-term storage solutions such as LTO Ultrium.Magnetic tape is once again becoming a strategic element of modern data infrastructures, Meyrath said, and market results are proof of the change. In 2024, LTO media set a massive all-time record of 176.5 exabytes in shipped capacity. The market went through a "modest" 9% decline in 2025, with 160.3 exabytes shipped, but the LTO Consortium is now forecasting renewed growth by the end of 2026.Q1 2026 growth was driven by the increasing prevalence of LTO-9 tapes, which have a "native" capacity of 18TB and can store up to 45TB of compressed data. Newer LTO-10 tapes, released earlier this year, can store 40TB/100TB of uncompressed/compressed data and are likely to entice even more customers over the next few months. Storage analyst Tom Coughlin said that both AI workloads and traditional archival workloads can drive growth in the LTO Ultrium market. Many organizations are considering tape-based solutions for both their primary and secondary storage platforms, with tape media acting as a stable anchor in a mix of different storage solutions.Magnetic tape has always been a popular medium for "cold" storage applications because it can quickly provide terabytes of additional capacity at a low cost per TB. The LTO Consortium is also hoping that customers will upgrade their existing solutions to newer LTO generations, which should further boost shipment figures.

Tape storage companies continue to celebrate substantial growth. The format might seem archaic in the mid 2020s but on Tuesday, the LTO Program Technology Provider Companies (TPCs), HPE, IBM, and Quantum Corp., boasted of capacity shipment growth of 57% YOY, in Q1 2026. You guessed it: AI data center demands have contributed to bumper tape shipments, but so have the requirements for traditional archive workloads and cyber-resilient backups.Latest Videos FromTom's HardwareStay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware NewsletterGet Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.

Organisations across manufacturing, cybersecurity, finance, tax, retail and hospitality are turning AI pilots into measurable value through trusted data, governance and human judgement at scale.

storageTape still isn’t dead, but shipments slipped by 16 exabytes in 2025LTO program is confident this is a glitch, not terminal unspoolingTape is still not dead, but it’s not in rude health either after shipments slipped by 16 exabytes in 2025.That number comes from the LTO Program – the alliance of HPE, IBM, and Quantum Corp, that together tends the Linear Tape-Open (LTO) Format that accounts for around 85 percent of all tape sales. The Program delivers an annual data dump describing the previous year’s shipments, and this year’s effort landed on Tuesday with news that 160.3 exabytes worth of LTO tape went out the door during 2025, nine percent down from 2024’s 176.5 exabytes.The LTO Program pointed out that 2024 represented an all-time high, and that 2025’s shipments are the second-highest result for the format.The trio quoted storage analyst Tom Coughlin as saying the reason for the 16 exabyte slip was “the evolving international trade environment” which he thinks “contributed to more cautious purchasing behavior, with businesses across a wide range of industries adjusting their sourcing and inventory decisions accordingly.”“We suspect that if this uncertainty is resolved the continued strength of the tape storage market will be even more impressive, particularly as constrained power availability for data center buildouts favors including tape, which consumes less power than any other storage media,” Coughlin said.The LTO Program’s announcement also made much of the fact that Q1 2026 shipments are 57 percent higher than for the same period last year.“The strong start to 2026 confirms that many customers are fully committed to growing their tape infrastructure, leveraging the technology to complement other primary and secondary storage platforms,” the LTO trio asserted, before anticipating “2026 will further strengthen the tape market with another record-setting year.”The org attributed the early 2026 upswing to the debut of a new 40TB tape cartridge that’s compatible with the drives that handle the 30TB cartridges that were previously the best LTO could muster.Tape’s big advantages are high capacity and low power consumption. The downside is painfully long restore and retrieval times. Users must also store tapes carefully.Hyperscalers have therefore challenged the medium with archival-storage-as-a-service offerings that offer virtual tapes to deliver interoperability with tape backup tools.Providers of those services are cagey about exactly what storage medium they use, but it seems most employ large-capacity hard disk drives – which are currently in short supply because hyperscalers need them for AI applications.Even so, that situation may not create a moment for tape because just two companies – Sony and Fujifilm – make LTO tape cartridges, and shortages are not unknown. ®

The AI infrastructure discussion is typically framed around the cost of data centers, the power requirements, and the compute needed to train and run models, including GPUs and high-performance storage. That’s hardly surprising given the eye-watering investment numbers occupying the headlines.The other key commodity, of course, is data to fuel those models. According to Stanford University’s 2025 AI Index Report, dataset sizes for training LLMs are doubling every eight months. In practical terms, as each model is built, some data will move quickly into curation and model-development environments, where fast access is essential.Much of it, however, will wait longer while teams establish its relevance to a particular AI use case – not sitting idle, but held securely and ready to move quickly into curation, training and transformation pipelines when needed.Latest Videos FromTechRadarSkip Levens is Quantum’s Product Marketer and AI Strategist, the LTO Program. From a storage perspective, this raises a point that is easy to overlook: a dataset does not need the same performance at every stage of the AI pipeline. What matters is that it is ready when it is needed – not that it sits on always-on, high-performance infrastructure throughout, which at scale becomes unnecessarily expensive.The question for infrastructure planners, then, is not whether AI needs fast storage, but where organizations should keep the very large datasets that will be required in future, before they are ready to be processed. That choice is a strategic one, not a housekeeping one.The right capacity tier should keep data protected and readily recoverable into AI, training and transformation pipelines, puts performance only where the work is actually happening, and returns the difference to the budget.Your data portfolio as strategic advantage As every organization's mission is different, so too each will be at a different stage of the AI journey. Some have raced ahead with systems already in production, while many others continue to explore how the data they already hold could support AI initiatives – documents, images and video, operational records, information collected through connected systems; the list goes on.Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletterSign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed!This is why knowing your own data is fast becoming a competitive lever rather than an IT chore. Models are available to everyone, so proprietary data is your competitive advantage – if you can access it and use it at scale.The organizations that will move fastest are the ones that already know what they hold, where it sits, and how quickly it can be put to work. Shortening the distance between a business question and the data that answers it is now a measure of how fast a company can execute and succeed.So data is not simply an input to AI: it is what shapes the model. The more of an organization's own data it can bring to bear, the sharper and more specific the resulting tools become, which is why the working assumption should be that almost anything the business holds is potentially useful.The conventional approach has been to hold large datasets in a disk-based data lake until they are needed for further processing. Yet as data sets grow ever larger, so too could cost. If every candidate dataset has to live on always-on, high-performance infrastructure, cost sets the ceiling on how much data an organization can afford to keep in play at all.The challenge, then, is to keep everything available to workflows as needed, so that the deciding factor is the use case, not the storage bill.Tale of the tape The smart play therefore is not to spend more, but to stop overspending where there is a better way. And it turns out one of the strongest answers here is a technology that has never stopped innovating: tape. Most people still associate it with backup and long-term archive – a role it continues to play well – but successive LTO generations have transformed its capacity, throughput and security while the industry looked elsewhere.The latest tape technology and systems now behave like any other tier in the stack, ready to stream data into fast storage when curation or training is ready for it. And tape’s economics get better as it grows. At the multi-petabyte scale AI programs now reach, cost per terabyte is a fraction of flash or even HDD infrastructure. Performance and capacity can also scale independently, adding more drives for throughput and more cartridges for capacity.When considered with tape’s extraordinary energy efficiency, this storage technology emerges as a strategic capability to build into the data center, allowing an organization to keep its entire data estate in play, at a cost that scales predictably.A safer place for valuable data Cost of storage and operation often gets projects approved, yet protection is the one that keeps people up at night. Here, tape offers something the online tiers structurally cannot. Encryption is handled in hardware on the cartridge. Write-Once-Read-Many (WORM) media makes a dataset immutable in the physical sense, so that irreplaceable data cannot be rewritten.And for the most valuable material, tape sets can leave the library altogether and be stored in a secure location or offsite – fully offline, fully air-gapped, and insulated from anything that happens to the production environment.What counts now in building data and AI pipelines for your organization is ensuring data is ready to move into the right performance tier the moment it is needed. Data is the fuel for the models an organization builds, the decisions it makes, and how fast it can act on either.Tape is what makes it affordable to keep all of that ‘data fuel’ at scale, protect what cannot be replaced, and put any of it to work on demand. Build it in now, and what you can do with your data is no longer limited by what you can afford to keep online, and instead becomes the means to get, and stay, ahead of your competition.We've featured the best cloud storage.This article was produced as part of TechRadar Pro Perspectives, our channel to feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today.The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/pro/perspectives-how-to-submit

Guarding Against Insider Threats In An AI WorldAs AI continues to develop and more businesses embed it into operations, AI agents are quickly becoming the most significant insider threat.In fact, research suggests that machine identities now outnumber human workers by 109 to one. Its rapid evolution has resulted in rules and regulations being rewritten across every industry as teams look to adapt. Given 93% of security leaders already identify insider incidents as harder to detect than external cyber threats, organisations must update their security controls to incorporate AI risk or suffer the consequences.Tailored Security is Essential in an AI WorkplaceAs AI agents become firmly integrated into business functions, Neil Jenkins, Chief Product Officer, Fastmail, warns: “AI agents have moved the needle on what insider risk looks like. The biggest threat inside an organisation is no longer necessarily a disgruntled employee. It could be someone clicking the wrong link or an AI agent doing exactly what it was told, with consequences nobody intended.“That makes controlling who, or what, can access sensitive systems more important than ever,” he continues. “Strong authentication is a fundamental part of managing insider risk, but it’s only the first line of defence. Businesses need to apply the principle of least privilege, giving employees access only to what they need and making it easy to flag suspicious activity. Increasingly, that same thinking needs to apply to AI agents.“Like King Midas, an AI agent can give you exactly what you asked for, but not necessarily in the way you intended. Agents need tightly defined permissions, clear boundaries and appropriate monitoring so that an unexpected route to completing a task doesn’t become a security vulnerability,” Jenkins concludes.Setting out clear guardrails and managing permissions is key to combating insider threats in an increasingly AI-centric world. However, Bertijn Eldering, Associate Sales Engineer at HackerOne, argues that businesses must go further. He explains that “the insider risk in enterprise AI is rarely about intent and more so about inherited access. An assistant does not simply decide to leak data, it answers the question it was asked using whatever it can access.”Because these AI systems operate at speed, it can be difficult for businesses to identify whether a threat is human, or AI-driven. “The answer to combating this challenge is practical,” says Eldering. “Give agents their own identities and scope them to a single task. Keep an audit trail you would be willing to defend in an investigation. Treat every change to a tool, model or integration as a change to your exposure, test that continuously rather than at review points, and keep a human in the loop for the judgement calls.” Solidifying Resilience Through Protected BackupsAs insider risk expands beyond human users, access control isn’t the only security consideration. Organisations must look beyond initial defensive measures and identify how critical data can be recovered if those controls fail. Carlos Sandoval Castro, IBM Worldwide Tape Offering Manager for the LTO Program, argues that “one way to reduce that risk is to ensure that critical backup data cannot be accessed through the network at all.”He continues: “Tape storage is particularly well suited to this because data stored on offline tape is physically separated from connected infrastructure. Once a tape cartridge has been removed from the drive and securely stored, an insider – whether a compromised account, malicious employee or autonomous system – cannot remotely access, alter, or delete the data. Access requires someone to be physically present and able to retrieve and load the media.“This physical air gap can therefore provide an important additional layer of protection within a broader cyber resilience strategy,” he adds. “It helps organisations preserve a known-good copy of critical data that remains available for recovery even if production and connected backup environments have been compromised – a must-have when getting back to business-as-usual.”The importance of secure, isolated backups is echoed by Mark Molyneux, Field CTO at Commvault. With 90% of businesses saying they need to make identity management improvements to address AI-related risks, he argues that “a ResOps model that brings identity, security and recovery together, whilst monitoring for unexpected activity, is essential. Organisations should also maintain a recovery environment isolated from live systems, so that critical data and the backups required to restore it remain protected. Adopting this approach and preparing in advance allows businesses to respond quickly if an incident does occur.”As AI agents reshape insider risk, businesses must adapt their defences, combining tighter controls and continuous oversight with resilient, isolated backups to ensure critical data remains protected.Image: IdeogramYou Might Also Read:Agentic AI Demands Strict Identity Security & Governance:If you like this website and use the comprehensive 8,000-plus service supplier Directory, you can get unrestricted access, including the exclusive in-depth Directors Report series, by signing up for a Premium Subscription.Individual £5 per month or £50 per year. Sign UpMulti-User, Corporate & Library Accounts Available on RequestCyber Security Intelligence: Captured Organised & Accessible

Cybersecurity experts warn that organisations face a more volatile threat landscape in 2026, as geopolitical tensions drive state-linked attacks and enterprises revisit older storage technologies in response to ransomware.UK lawmakers have introduced the Government Cyber Action Plan, which sets out measures that aim to strengthen cyber defences across vital public services. Security specialists say the move reflects a broader shift in both the nature of cyber threats and the types of defensive tools that enterprises now consider.Vendors and analysts expect cyber warfare, critical infrastructure risk and long-tail ransomware recovery to dominate board agendas through 2026.Geopolitics shiftSecurity leaders describe a growing overlap between traditional cyber crime and state-aligned campaigns. They say this blurs the line between criminal extortion and geopolitical disruption and raises the likelihood that organisations become unintended victims."The introduction of the Government Cyber Action Plan is an acknowledgement that as geopolitical tensions heighten, elevated levels of cybersecurity vigilance are required from every organisation, especially those involved in the delivery of key public services. For example, geopolitics has long been a driver of DDoS attack activity, but threat actors are targeting more intelligently, moving on from targeting government websites directly to hitting supporting service enablers and digital supply chains."A big change we have seen in 2025 is the immediacy of the relationship between real-world tensions and cyber activity. Attacks are now launched to coincide with individual political speeches or specific military operations. Private and public sector organisations can easily become collateral damage in geopolitically motivated attack campaigns."More sophisticated attack tools and the emergence of next-generation 'DDoS-as-a-Service' capabilities have removed barriers to entry to sophisticated attack capabilities, giving threat actors the ability to easily orchestrate complex campaigns. For defenders, this makes real-time intelligence** and adaptive defences more critical than ever," said Darren Anstee, Chief Technology Officer for Security, NETSCOUT.Enterprises that run critical national infrastructure and essential services face heightened scrutiny from regulators. They also face growing exposure to spill-over attacks that target suppliers and online intermediaries rather than government assets directly.DDoS evolutionSecurity professionals report an increase in distributed denial-of-service activity linked to political flashpoints and regional conflicts. Adversaries now combine higher volumes of traffic with more complex techniques that aim to exhaust both network capacity and security controls.Specialists say that so-called DDoS-as-a-service offerings on criminal marketplaces give less skilled actors access to attack tools and rentable botnets. These services automate aspects of reconnaissance and attack orchestration. They also reduce the cost and expertise required to launch disruptive campaigns.Defenders respond by investing in real-time telemetry and automated mitigation tools that adjust to changing attack patterns. They also seek better visibility across their own environments and their external service providers.Supply chain riskThe growing focus on digital supply chains reflects a pattern in which attackers bypass primary targets. They do this by compromising upstream or downstream entities such as managed service providers, hosting platforms or specialist software vendors.Security teams now assess risk beyond their own networks. They review contractual obligations on security controls. They also push for clearer incident reporting and joint response planning with partners.Industry observers say this trend places additional weight on the Government Cyber Action Plan and similar frameworks. These initiatives encourage baseline security practices and information sharing across public and private sectors.Ransomware responseWhile geopolitical campaigns draw attention, ransomware remains a persistent threat to enterprises of all sizes. Breaches that destroy or encrypt backups are prompting some organisations to re-evaluate their storage strategies and recovery processes."Companies are realising they can't do ransomware with a point product. There is no magic wand or silver bullet to deploy against a threat that can come from anywhere. IT teams and their organisations will need a deep defence, including building layers of security and using different protocols, processes, platforms and tech, and this means relying on tape," said Andrew Dodd, HPE Storage Worldwide Marketing Communications Manager, the LTO Programme.Security architects now talk about layered defence models that combine network controls, endpoint protection, identity security and data resilience measures. They separate data storage decisions from threat detection tooling. They also revisit offline or air-gapped backup methods that reduce the risk of simultaneous compromise.Return of tapeTape storage features in many of these discussions. Technology teams argue that offline, removable media reduces the attack surface during a ransomware incident because it is not continuously accessible over the network.Organisations in regulated sectors, such as financial services and healthcare, have used tape for long-term archiving. Some of these enterprises now extend its role into cyber recovery plans. They implement tiered backup architectures with a mix of disk, cloud and tape. They also test restore procedures from each tier.Vendors in the Linear Tape-Open ecosystem report increased interest from customers that experienced ransomware incidents. They say these customers often reassess the balance between rapid restore times and isolation from online threats.Resilience focusThe combination of state-linked attacks, commodity criminal tools and long dwell times inside networks pushes organisations to treat cyber incidents as an operational risk rather than only an IT issue. Boards ask for clearer metrics on recovery times and data loss. They also demand evidence of scenario planning that includes both disruptive DDoS events and destructive malware.Security consultants expect this year to bring more regulatory attention on incident reporting and resilience testing. They say this will affect not only critical infrastructure operators but also suppliers that connect to those environments."More sophisticated attack tools and the emergence of next-generation 'DDoS-as-a-Service' capabilities have removed barriers to entry to sophisticated attack capabilities, giving threat actors the ability to easily orchestrate complex campaigns. For defenders, this makes real-time intelligence** and adaptive defences more critical than ever," said Anstee.

The amount of data being produced is exploding, and storage needs greater attention

Sophos’ latest annual study explores the real-world ransomware experiences of 332 manufacturing and production organizations hit by ransomware in the past year. The report examines how the causes and consequences of these attacks have evolved over time.This year’s edition also sheds new light on previously unexplored areas, including the organizational factors that left firms exposed and the human toll ransomware takes on IT and cybersecurity teams within the sector.Download the report to explore the full findings.Exploited vulnerabilities and expertise shortfalls fuel ransomware incidentsExploited vulnerabilities are the leading root cause of ransomware attacks on manufacturing and production organizations, responsible for 32% of incidents. Malicious emails ranked second, with their share declining from 29% in 2024 to 23% in 2025.Multiple organizational factors contribute to manufacturing and production organizations falling victim to ransomware, with the most common being a lack of expertise (i.e., insufficient skills or knowledge available to detect and stop the attack in time) named by 42.5% of victims. It is followed in very close succession by unknown security gaps (i.e., weaknesses in defenses that respondents were unaware of), which contributed to 41.6% of attacks.Organizational root cause of attacks in manufacturing and productionData encryption sharply declines but extortion rates soarData encryption in the sector has dropped to its lowest level in five years, with 40% of attacks resulting in data being encrypted — the third lowest percentage recorded in this year’s survey and close to half the 74% reported by manufacturing and production organizations in 2024. In line with this trend, the percentage of attacks stopped before encryption reached a five-year high, indicating that manufacturing and production organizations are strengthening their defenses.However, adversaries are adapting: The proportion of manufacturing and production organizations hit by extortion-only attacks (where data wasn’t encrypted but a ransom was still demanded) surged to 10% of attacks in 2025 from just 3% in 2024 — the second highest rate reported in this year’s survey. This is likely due to the high value of intellectual property, complex supply chains, and the operational impact of downtime in manufacturing environments.Data encryption in manufacturing and production | 2021 – 2025Ransom payments persist while reliance on backups hold steadyWhile the proportion of manufacturing and production organizations paying the ransom to recover data has declined in the last year, over half (51%) still paid — well above 2022 (33%) and 2023 (34%) levels. Meanwhile, backup use remains steady at 58% in 2025, reflecting strong confidence in this data recovery method.Recovery of encrypted data in manufacturing and production | 2021 – 2025Ransom demands, payments and attack recovery costs fallRansomware economics in manufacturing and production shifted in 2025, with average ransom demands falling 20% to $1.2M (from $1.5M in 2024) and payments dropping from $1.2M to $1.0M. The decline was largely driven by fewer mid-range ($1M–$5M) demands and payouts, while extreme cases ($5M+) saw a slight uptick.At the same time, the mean cost of recovery (excluding any ransoms paid) has dropped nearly a quarter (24%) over the past year to $1.3M, down from $1.7M in 2024 and below the $1.5M global average in this year’s report.Collectively, these findings indicate that the sector is becoming more resilient and efficient in its ransomware response but still faces high-value outliers that skew the overall risk landscape.Ransomware takes a human toll, driving stress and anxiety among IT/cybersecurity teams within the sectorThe survey reveals that ransomware incidents have profound repercussions for IT and cybersecurity teams in the manufacturing and production sector. Nearly half of respondents (47%) reported increased anxiety or stress about future attacks, underscoring the lasting psychological impact of such events.Other common consequences include a shift in team priorities or focus (45%), heightened pressure from senior leadership (44%), and a sustained increase in workload (41%). Notably, the proportion of manufacturing and production respondents reporting these effects was higher than the cross-sector average across nearly all areas, highlighting the exceptional strain faced by teams in this industry. Download the full report for more insights into the human and financial impacts of ransomware on the retail sector.What Sophos is seeing in the manufacturing sectorIn addition to the findings of the report, over the past twelve months, Sophos X-Ops has observed ransomware activity across leak sites and found that 99 distinct threat groups targeted manufacturing organizations. The most prominent groups targeting manufacturing organizations based on leak site observations are GOLD SAHARA (Akira), GOLD FEATHER (Qilin) and GOLD ENCORE (PLAY).  Reflecting the trends in the report, over half of the ransomware incidents handled by Sophos Emergency Incident Response involved both data theft and data encryption, underscoring the continued rise of double extortion tactics where stolen data is held to ransom and threatened with publication on a leak site.About the surveyThe report is based on the findings of an independent, vendor-agnostic survey commissioned by Sophos of 3,400 IT/cybersecurity leaders across 17 countries in the Americas, EMEA, and Asia Pacific, including 332 from the manufacturing and production sector. All respondents represent organizations with between 100 and 5,000 employees. The survey was conducted by research specialist Vanson Bourne between January and March 2025, and participants were asked to respond based on their experiences over the previous year.

Ransomware targets small firms, but they're still not buying. Despite rising threat levels, new customer acquisition has stalled - one of the key ...

The LTO Program Technology Provider Companies (TPCs), Hewlett Packard Enterprise, International Business Machines Corporation and Quantum Corporation, today announced specifications for a new generation of LTO Ultrium data cartridges with 40 TB native capacity (up to 100 TB compressed, assuming 2.5:1 compression), extending the industry's most widely adopted open tape format for long-term, cyber-resilient, and energy-efficient data preservation. At the same time, the TPCs are optimizing the technology roadmap for future LTO products to better align with customer priorities regarding reliability, affordability and efficiency for managing colossal amounts of data.As organizations generate and retain unprecedented volumes of data to power AI, analytics, data insight, and compliance, the 40 TB LTO-10 cartridge offers enterprises and other large-capacity users superior storage density to efficiently archive greater amounts of information. This leap in capacity is made possible by innovations in the LTO-10 drive head design and a new, highly stable base film material, which together unlock the increased native media capacity of 40 TB. This new 40 TB cartridge is compatible with the same LTO-10 drive organizations are using for the 30 TB cartridge. "AI has turned archives into strategic assets," said Stephen Bacon, Vice President, Data Protection Solutions Product Management, HPE. "The new 40 TB LTO-10 cartridge will help enterprise-class organizations—across healthcare, financial services, media, research, manufacturing, the public sector and beyond—consolidate petabytes efficiently, strengthen cyber resiliency with true offline air-gapping, and keep long-term retention affordable and sustainable."Built for AI-Era Archives and Enterprise Scale The 40 TB LTO-10 cartridge achieves its breakthrough capacity by using an advanced base film technology known as Aramid. Aramid permits the manufacture of significantly thinner and smoother media, enabling longer tape lengths in a standard LTO Ultrium cartridge form factor. This material innovation provides an extra 10 TB of native capacity than the currently available 30 TB LTO-10 cartridge, which is manufactured using different materials.Built for AI-Era Archives and Enterprise ScaleOnce 40 TB LTO-10 cartridges are available, customers will be able to choose between the two different LTO-10 media types based upon their individual cost and capacity requirements, allowing for greater flexibility in media deployment. "Enterprises are moving from ad-hoc retention to intentional 'archive architectures' that serve AI, legal, and sustainability goals," said Jon Brown, Senior Analyst at Omdia. "This new 40 TB LTO-10 capacity point advances that architecture: fewer cartridges, fewer frames, lower energy and a stronger security posture."Roadmap OptimizationIn conjunction with the Aramid announcement, the TPCs are also optimizing the capacity roadmap for future generations of LTO technology, from Generation 11 through Generation 14. This will result in a new outlook for the projected capacities to be delivered in each generation, peaking with a 913 TB cartridge at Generation 14. The revised LTO roadmap is tightly aligned with anticipated storage requirements in the coming years and gives the technology space to grow should users require it. The new capacity points will prioritize reliability and compelling value in terms of cost per terabyte, and ensure everyday LTO Ultrium tape solutions will remain a practical and affordable storage choice for every type of business or workload. Meanwhile, the new maximum capacity of 913 TB for LTO-14 will reduce the time needed to store and recover data, while preserving exabyte-scale growth paths for tape libraries. The roadmap ensures LTO tape technology will remain the most reliable, affordable, and efficient way to archive AI-scale data for the next decade.40 TB Cartridge AvailabilityMedia qualification and interchange testing will begin directly after this announcement, with the expectation that 40 TB products will be available for shipment in the first calendar quarter of 2026. Buyers seeking LTO Ultrium format-compliant products should look for the LTO Ultrium format verification trademarks on both tape drives and data cartridges. Storage and media manufacturers interested in licensing LTO formats may obtain information by contacting the LTO Program at www.lto.org/contact-us/. Organizations can evaluate multi-year Total Cost of Ownership and sustainability impacts using the LTO Ultrium TCO Tool and by consulting their preferred solution providers.

LTO’s 40TB cartridge pushes tape storage into the AI-driven futureAramid film gives magnetic tape the strength to expand its lifespanMagnetic tape storage remains the cheapest offline safeguard for critical enterprise dataLong dismissed as outdated technology, magnetic tape storage continues to defy predictions of extinction.The LTO Program, a collaboration between HPE, IBM, and Quantum, has unveiled a new generation of LTO Ultrium cartridges offering 40TB of native capacity.The development coincides with a renewed roadmap stretching to Generation 14, which targets a 913TB capacity milestone.A new approach to tape materialsThe 40TB LTO-10 cartridge’s capacity increase is largely driven by “Aramid,” a new base film material that enables thinner and smoother tape, allowing for longer tape lengths without expanding the cartridge’s size.Combined with refinements to drive head design, the new media achieves an additional 10TB over the 30TB model while remaining compatible with existing LTO-10 drives.“Enterprises are moving from ad-hoc retention to intentional ‘archive architectures’ that serve AI, legal, and sustainability goals,” said Jon Brown, Senior Analyst at Omdia.“This new 40TB LTO-10 capacity point advances that architecture: fewer cartridges, fewer frames, lower energy, and a stronger security posture.”Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletterSign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed!The upgrade targets enterprises that need to store large datasets over decades, from scientific research to financial records, while keeping power and maintenance costs low.Alongside the 40TB announcement, the Technology Provider Companies have adjusted their roadmap for upcoming LTO generations, spanning from LTO-11 to LTO-14.The roadmap now peaks at an ambitious 913TB per cartridge, aligning with projected increases in storage demand from AI and data-intensive applications.“AI has turned archives into strategic assets,” said Stephen Bacon, Vice President, Data Protection Solutions Product Management, HPE.“The new 40TB LTO-10 cartridge will help enterprise-class organisations—across healthcare, financial services, media, research, manufacturing, the public sector and beyond—consolidate petabytes efficiently, strengthen cyber resiliency with true offline air-gapping, and keep long-term retention affordable and sustainable.”By prioritizing cost per terabyte, reliability, and long-term scalability, the revised plan aims to keep tape competitive in a landscape increasingly dominated by solid-state performance.The roadmap also accounts for faster storage and retrieval processes, supporting exabyte-scale infrastructure growth across industries.Testing for the new 40TB cartridges will begin shortly, with availability expected in early 2026.Despite Elon Musk’s public dismissal of older storage formats, tape continues to serve a specific function that neither flash drives nor SSD systems can replace.Its offline nature provides a defence against cyberattacks and data loss from hardware failure.This new roadmap suggests that tape will not only survive the AI era but continue adapting to it.Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too.

LTO Program Unveils LTO-10 40TB Ultrium Cartridge, Updates Roadmap Toward 913TB Archival Tapeby Lyle Smithon November 15, 2025Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM, and Quantum, collectively known as the LTO Technology Provider Companies, have officially announced the specifications for a new LTO-10 data cartridge featuring 40TB of native storage capacity. This update to the LTO Ultrium format delivers a substantial capacity increase and a retooled technology roadmap that aligns with current trends in AI-driven data use, long-term archiving needs, and sustainability concerns.LTO-10 Data CartridgeThe new LTO-10 media can store up to 100TB of compressed data at a 2.5:1 compression ratio, making it particularly useful for enterprises handling massive volumes of information. As organizations increasingly rely on data for AI model training, analytics, compliance, and long-term preservation, demand for higher-density, offline air‑gapping continues to grow. The 40TB capacity represents a 33% increase over the existing 30TB LTO-10 cartridges, which will continue to be available and coexist with the new model.The capacity boost is the result of engineering refinements to both the drive head and the tape material. Central to this upgrade is the use of an Aramid-based base film, a shift from the composition used in the earlier version. This material enables thinner, smoother tape, allowing longer tape to be housed in a standard cartridge shell. Importantly, no new drive is needed. The 40TB cartridges are compatible with existing LTO-10 drives, offering users an immediate upgrade path without requiring hardware replacement.LTO Program Roadmap UpdatedIn parallel with the 40 TB announcement, the LTO Program has adjusted its roadmap for future generations of the Ultrium format. Generations 11 through 14 will feature revised capacity targets, with the final milestone now set at 913 TB for LTO-14.These new goals reflect projected storage needs across industries and are designed to deliver better long-term value at a lower cost per TB. The roadmap also keeps future development aligned with reliability expectations and the growing need for scalable solutions.At the same time, the offline nature of LTO tape remains a strong option for organizations seeking to enhance their resilience against cyber threats.AvailabilityThe 40 TB LTO-10 cartridge is expected to be available in the first quarter of 2026. Qualification and interchange testing will begin immediately. Buyers are encouraged to look for LTO Ultrium verification marks on both drives and cartridges to ensure format compliance. Organizations evaluating whether this new media fits into their long-term planning can use the LTO TCO tool or work with their preferred solution providers to assess cost and environmental impact.LTO UltriumLyle SmithLyle is a long-time staff writer for StorageReview, covering a broad set of end user and enterprise IT topics.

The forgotten tape drive just made a comeback so huge it's threatening to outlast flash drives and SSDs combined.

TechRadar (@techradar). LTO's 40TB Ultrium tape revives magnetic storage with Aramid film and a roadmap targeting 913TB for AI-scale data.

Opening: The Unlikely Resilience of Legacy StorageIn an age dominated by flashy cloud solutions and AI-driven innovations, it’s easy to dismiss technologies like Linear Tape-Open (LTO) storage as relics of the past. Yet, as Elon Musk’s ventures, such as Tesla and SpaceX, push for all-digital, tape-free environments, LTO tape storage isn’t just surviving—it’s thriving. Why does this matter now? With data volumes exploding due to AI, IoT, and regulatory demands, businesses face a critical juncture: balancing cost, security, and sustainability in their data strategies. This isn’t about nostalgia; it’s about future readiness in a world where data is both an asset and a liability.Current State: LTO’s Steady Climb in a Digital WorldDespite predictions of its demise, LTO tape storage continues to see robust enterprise adoption. Recent developments, like the LTO-9 specification offering up to 45 TB of compressed capacity per cartridge, highlight its evolution. Companies in sectors like healthcare, finance, and media rely on LTO for long-term archiving, with the Global LTO Tape Storage Market projected to grow at a CAGR of around 7% through 2028, according to industry reports. For instance, major cloud providers, including AWS and Google, integrate tape into their cold storage tiers, recognizing its cost-effectiveness for infrequently accessed data. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s efforts to eliminate tape—such as Tesla’s push for fully digital manufacturing records—underscore a broader trend toward real-time, high-performance storage. However, this hasn’t wiped out LTO; instead, it has clarified its niche: where low cost, high durability, and energy efficiency trump speed.Key Drivers and ChallengesThe persistence of LTO stems from tangible benefits. Cost efficiency is paramount—tape storage can be up to 80% cheaper per terabyte than disk or cloud alternatives for archival purposes. Security is another forte; with air-gapping capabilities, LTO tapes are immune to cyberattacks like ransomware, a growing concern as data breaches cost businesses an average of $4.45 million globally in 2023. Sustainability adds to its appeal, as tapes consume minimal power when not in use, aligning with corporate ESG goals. Yet, challenges abound. Implementation hurdles include slower access times, which can delay data retrieval in urgent scenarios, and the need for specialized hardware and expertise. Moreover, the perception of tape as outdated can deter innovation-focused leaders, risking missed opportunities in hybrid storage models.Analysis: Implications for Business and TechnologyThe endurance of LTO tape storage reveals deeper implications for digital transformation. On one hand, it highlights the fallacy of a one-size-fits-all approach to data management. As AI and big data analytics demand vast historical datasets, LTO provides a scalable, low-cost repository that complements high-performance systems. This duality fosters a hybrid storage ecosystem, where hot data resides on flash or cloud for instant access, while cold data rests securely on tape. Opportunities include enhanced data governance—for example, in regulated industries like finance, where compliance requires decades-long retention. However, the reliance on tape also poses risks, such as vendor lock-in with proprietary formats or skills gaps in maintaining tape libraries. From a broader trend perspective, this mirrors the rise of edge computing, where distributed data storage solutions gain prominence over centralized models. The key takeaway: businesses must evaluate storage not just on technological prowess but on total cost of ownership, risk mitigation, and alignment with long-term strategies.Ian’s Perspective: Why Tape Isn’t Going Anywhere SoonAs a technology futurist, I see LTO tape storage as a testament to the principle of “right tool for the job.” Elon Musk’s vision of a tape-free world is admirable for its innovation drive, but it overlooks the pragmatic realities of enterprise economics. My analysis suggests that tape’s resilience isn’t a failure of progress but a smart adaptation. In an era of AI-generated data deluge, the cost of storing every byte in high-performance systems is unsustainable. Predictions? I foresee LTO evolving with smarter integrations, such as AI-driven indexing for faster retrievals, and partnerships with blockchain for immutable audit trails. However, businesses that ignore tape’s strengths risk bloated IT budgets and vulnerabilities in their data lifecycle. The future isn’t about choosing between old and new; it’s about orchestrating a symphony of technologies that ensure readiness for whatever comes next.Future Outlook: Short-Term Gains and Long-Term ShiftsIn the next 1-3 years, expect LTO to solidify its role in cold data management, with advancements in capacity and automation reducing manual interventions. Hybrid cloud-tape solutions will become mainstream, driven by cost pressures and data sovereignty laws. By 5-10 years, quantum storage and DNA-based alternatives might emerge, but LTO could adapt through enhanced durability and eco-friendly materials, potentially capturing niche markets in space exploration or deep archives. The key trend will be interoperability—tape systems that seamlessly integrate with AI platforms for predictive analytics. Nonetheless, if innovation stalls, LTO could face decline in favor of more agile, software-defined storage. For leaders, this means staying agile: investing in tape where it makes sense, but remaining open to disruptive technologies that could redefine storage paradigms.Takeaways: Actionable Insights for Business LeadersAssess Your Data Lifecycle: Conduct a thorough audit to identify cold data suitable for LTO, balancing access needs with cost savings. This can reduce storage expenses by up to 60% in archival scenarios.Embrace Hybrid Models: Integrate LTO with cloud and on-premise systems for a resilient data strategy. For example, use tape for compliance archives and cloud for active analytics, ensuring both security and agility.Invest in Skills and Security: Train teams in tape management and leverage its air-gapped nature to fortify against cyber threats. In a ransomware-prone world, this could be your data’s insurance policy.Monitor Innovation Trends: Keep an eye on advancements in LTO and alternatives; pilot new integrations like AI-enhanced tape libraries to future-proof your investments.Prioritize Sustainability: Leverage LTO’s low energy footprint to support ESG goals, potentially cutting carbon emissions associated with data centers.Ian Khan is a globally recognized technology futurist, voted Top 25 Futurist and a Thinkers50 Future Readiness Award Finalist. He specializes in AI, digital transformation, and Future Readiness™, helping organizations navigate technological shifts.For more information on Ian’s specialties, The Future Readiness Score, media work, and bookings please visit www.IanKhan.comIan KhanThe FuturistIan Khan is a Theoretical Futurist and researcher specializing in emerging technologies. His new book Undisrupted will help you learn more about the next decade of technology development and how to be part of it to gain personal and professional advantage. Pre-Order a copy https://amzn.to/4g5gjH9