Dell warns resilience debt is undermining cyber recovery readiness

Organisations across Asia-Pacific are facing a growing but often overlooked cyber risk that threatens their ability to recover from major incidents, according to Dell Technologies. Termed “resilience debt”, the issue describes the operational risk that builds up when recovery preparedness fails to keep pace with the increasing complexity of cyber threats.

Over the past decade, many organisations have invested heavily in prevention, deploying advanced firewalls, endpoint protection, identity controls and AI-driven threat detection. While these measures have strengthened defensive capabilities, Dell argues they have also created a false sense of confidence. The result is a widening gap between what organisations believe they can recover from and what they are actually capable of restoring when an incident occurs.

Dell’s expanded Global Cyber Resilience Insights research suggests this gap is now widespread and accelerating. Nearly all surveyed organisations report having a formal cyber resilience strategy in place, yet many remain unprepared for real-world recovery scenarios. As environments become more complex and attackers increasingly target recovery systems themselves, resilience debt continues to accumulate quietly in the background.

A confidence gap between strategy and reality

On paper, cyber resilience appears strong. Dell’s research shows that close to all surveyed organisations globally claim to have a defined resilience strategy. However, the data points to a significant disconnect between executive confidence and operational readiness, particularly in Asia-Pacific and Japan.

According to the findings, 74 percent of IT leaders in the region believe their senior leadership overestimates how prepared the organisation is for a cyber event. This mismatch is more than a perception issue. Dell positions it as an early warning sign of resilience debt, as overconfidence often leads to fewer probing questions about recovery readiness and fewer investments in testing and validation.

When leaders assume recovery is assured, critical checks are frequently deferred. Organisations may not regularly test recovery processes, validate the integrity of backups, or attempt restorations in isolated or clean-room environments. In many cases, the recovery path is not protected with the same level of rigour as production systems. Each of these oversights adds to the accumulation of resilience debt.

The research further highlights a persistent imbalance in spending priorities. Globally, 78 percent of organisations invest more in preventing attacks than in preparing for recovery. While prevention remains essential, Dell notes that a prevention-first mindset can leave recovery underfunded and under-tested, even as attackers increasingly seek to compromise backup systems and recovery workflows directly.

How resilience debt accumulates over time

Resilience debt builds gradually and predictably, largely because recovery readiness deteriorates unless it is actively maintained. Dell’s analysis identifies several recurring patterns that contribute to the problem across industries and regions.

One key factor is the decline in testing frequency. Organisations that conduct recovery tests on a monthly basis or more frequently achieve a 61 percent success rate, according to the research. As testing becomes less frequent, the gap between assumed and actual recovery capability widens. This deterioration often goes unnoticed until a real incident occurs.

Another contributor is the way backups are treated. Attackers are increasingly targeting backup environments, corrupting snapshots and exploiting configuration drift. Despite this, many organisations continue to assume backups are inherently trustworthy. Without regular validation, backups can age into a state of “assumed trust”, where their integrity is taken for granted rather than proven.

Documentation also plays a role. Recovery playbooks often remain static while IT environments evolve through infrastructure changes, software updates and staff turnover. When these changes are not reflected in recovery plans, resilience debt increases. Over time, organisations may find that their documented procedures no longer align with their actual systems.

The danger of resilience debt lies in its invisibility. Unlike security debt, such as unpatched vulnerabilities, resilience debt typically remains hidden until an organisation is forced to recover. At that point, it is too late to test, update documentation or discover corrupted backups. Dell’s research shows that 55 percent of organisations did not recover as effectively as planned during their most recent incident or drill, underscoring how frequently resilience debt surfaces at the worst possible moment.

Treating recovery as a strategic capability

Dell argues that resilience debt is preventable, but only if organisations treat recovery as a strategic capability rather than an operational afterthought. Based on its work with customers across industries, the company observes a clear performance gap between organisations that prioritise recovery readiness and those that do not.

More mature organisations are taking a different approach. They are investing in isolated cyber vaults to protect critical data from ransomware and insider threats, and using automated validation alongside AI and machine learning to ensure recovery points are usable. Routine recovery testing is also becoming more realistic, with simulations designed to reflect adversarial conditions rather than ideal scenarios.

Importantly, resilience is increasingly being elevated to the board level. Rather than being confined to IT teams, recovery readiness is being treated as a business risk that requires executive oversight. This shift is also driving a more balanced allocation of resources between prevention and recovery, reducing the long-term accumulation of resilience debt.

Dell notes that organisations with mature resilience programmes not only recover more effectively but also operate with greater confidence. Validated recovery capabilities allow them to innovate, modernise and transform with less hesitation. In this context, cyber resilience moves beyond risk mitigation and becomes a source of competitive advantage.

As cyber threats continue to evolve and target recovery infrastructure directly, Dell’s research suggests that closing the confidence gap and addressing resilience debt will be critical for organisations seeking to limit downtime, meet recovery objectives and maintain trust in their digital operations.