It does not need to be a hundred-year flood. More mundane catastrophes such as fires, hard drive crashes and virus attacks lead to loss of data and system malfunctions every day. Many companies are unable to do business as a result. An emergency management and backup strategy is either entirely absent – or the organization had only considered isolated risks.

The consequences of an IT malfunction are often underestimated, and the cost of professional disaster recovery management overblown. In addition to cost-intensive down-times that often lead customers to turn to the competition, it can also lead to the permanent loss of what might be the company's most valuable asset: its data. And the negative effect on the company's image is just icing on the cake. Establishing an emergency recovery plan and data backup strategy are therefore of utmost importance in an effective trust management system.

Various data backup options are available for companies of all sizes, including external hard drives, RAID storage systems, magnetic tape and online. To prevent the backups from also being lost in case of a catastrophic event, it is advisable to store a copy in at least one other location as well. However, data backup is not enough. Too many backup systems are revealed to be corrupted, neglected, outdated or even inactive in case of an emergency. Regular emergency drills in which the backups are run through a test system, for example, significantly enhance security and reveal possible sources of error in the data backup strategy. Drills also reduce error in emergency procedures and provide information about actual recovery times. In addition, documentation of the hardware and software in use facilitates recovery and prevents the purchase of incompatible components.

If a backup strategy nonetheless fails, professional data recovery experts are often the final resort. These experts can reconstruct data even from heavily damaged storage media. In this scenario also, systematically planning for data recovery professionals is a fundamental feature of a recovery strategy. In addition to researching appropriate companies in advance that can be contacted quickly in case of emergency, a precise action plan is crucial, because a single false move can destroy the data completely.