Data protection is used to describe both data backup and disaster recovery. A quality data protection strategy should automate the movement of critical data to online and offline storage and include a comprehensive strategy for valuing, classifying, and protecting data as to protect these assets from user errors, malware and viruses, machine failure, or facility outages/disruptions.

Data protection storage technologies include tape backup, which copies data to a physical tape cartridge, or cloud backup, which copies data to the cloud, and mirroring, which replicates a website or files to a secondary location. These processes can be automated and policies assigned to the data, allowing for accurate, faster data recovery.

Data protection should always be applied to all forms of data within an organization, in order to protect the integrity of the data, protect from corruption or errors, and ensuring privacy of the data. When classifying data, policies should be established to identify different levels of security, from least secure (data that anyone can see) to most secure (data that if released, would put the organization at risk).