Are you performing off-site backups (i.e., digitally moved off site)?

This question is asking whether your organization creates backup copies of data and stores them at a different physical location than your primary systems. 'Off-site backups' means that backup data is transferred (usually digitally) to a separate geographical location from where your primary systems operate. This is being asked in a security assessment because off-site backups are a critical component of disaster recovery and business continuity planning. If a catastrophic event (fire, flood, physical attack, etc.) affects your primary location, having backups stored elsewhere ensures you can recover your data and resume operations. Off-site backups also provide protection against certain types of ransomware attacks that might target both primary systems and local backups. When answering this question, you should be clear about: 1. Whether you perform off-site backups at all 2. How the data is transferred to the off-site location (encrypted transmission, physical transport, etc.) 3. Where the off-site backups are stored (cloud provider, secondary data center, etc.) 4. How frequently backups are performed and transferred off-site 5. What security controls protect the backups during transfer and storage Even if you don't have a formal security background, understanding your organization's backup strategy is important for answering this question accurately.