Dell warns of rising cyber ‘resilience debt’ in Australia

Dell Technologies has reported a widening gap between cyberattack prevention spending and organisations' ability to recover after an incident, a risk it describes as "resilience debt".

The company's Global Cyber Resilience Insights research points to what it calls a growing mismatch between perceived recovery readiness and actual recovery capability. Dell said this gap leaves organisations more exposed than they recognise, particularly when attackers target backup and recovery systems.

In Australia, the research suggests this issue appears more pronounced than in many other markets. Dell reported that 26% of Australian respondents said their organisation had a structured plan but still struggled to contain or recover from a cyberattack. The global figure was 19%.

Australian findings

The study highlighted complexity as a major barrier to improved resilience. Dell said 58% of Australian respondents reported that complex IT environments stop their organisations from strengthening cyber resilience, compared with 54% globally.

Backup and archival systems emerged as a particular concern. Dell reported that 44% of Australian respondents said gaps in monitoring backup or archival data systems posed the greatest risk to their organisation's IT environment. The global figure was 30%.

The research also indicated a continued reliance on established approaches to protect data from ransomware. Dell said 48% of Australian respondents relied on traditional backup methods to secure critical data from ransomware attacks, compared with 36% globally.

On threat detection, Dell reported that 8% of Australian respondents still relied on manual methods, which the company described as "signature-based detection, SIEM", to detect and mitigate advanced, novel cyber threats. The global figure was 4%.

Dell also said 76% of Australian organisations invest more in preventing attacks than in preparing to recover from them. The company positioned this as a structural imbalance that leaves recovery activity underfunded and less frequently tested.

Recovery readiness

Across the global results, Dell reported that 56% of organisations did not recover as effectively as planned during their most recent incident or drill.

Dell linked this to the frequency and quality of testing. It said recovery readiness declines unless organisations actively refresh it. The company argued that gaps tend to increase over time where recovery tests occur infrequently, documentation remains unchanged while infrastructure evolves, or backup systems sit outside routine monitoring.

It also pointed to a changing threat landscape. Dell said attackers increasingly target backup systems, which can turn an incident into a prolonged outage if restore points are unavailable or compromised.

Executive confidence

The research also highlighted internal misalignment between operational teams and senior management. Dell said 68% of Australian IT leaders believe their executives are overestimating readiness.

Dell described this as an early sign of resilience debt. It also framed it as a driver of weaker governance, because leaders may not demand evidence that recovery processes work in real-world conditions.

"Despite their stated confidence, 68% of Australian IT leaders believe their executives are overestimating readiness."

Approaches in focus

Dell said organisations with more mature resilience programmes treat recovery as a strategic discipline rather than a technical task. The company said these organisations run routine recovery tests that reflect adversarial conditions. It also said they place more emphasis on validation of backups and restore points.

Dell also pointed to architectural approaches that separate sensitive recovery assets from production systems. It said some organisations build isolated cyber vaults for critical data.

The company said other organisations use automated validation and "AI/ML-driven clean restore techniques". Dell positioned these methods as part of a broader shift towards more frequent testing and greater scrutiny of recovery pathways.

Dell said the problem remains difficult to detect until an incident occurs, because resilience debt becomes visible when recovery fails or takes longer than planned. It said this can lead to extended downtime and missed recovery objectives.

The company said organisations are now reassessing the balance between investment in prevention controls and investment in recovery preparedness. It also said more organisations are placing cyber resilience on board agendas and integrating recovery exercises into routine risk management.