smBcrmsecurity

Checklist: What SMBs Should Ask Their Host About CRM Data Protection

UUnknown

2026-02-22

9 min read

Short checklist SMBs can use to vet hosts for CRM protection: backups, encryption, access control, incident response, and pricing clarity.

Checklist: What SMBs Should Ask Their Host About CRM Data Protection

Hook: If your CRM holds the keys to revenue — contacts, contracts, payment records and support histories — one unexpected outage or a successful ransomware attack can paralyze sales and ruin customer trust. SMBs need clear, auditable answers from their host about backups, encryption, access controls and incident response before signing any contract.

Quick checklist (60-second view)

Backup: RTO & RPO guarantees, immutable snapshots, restore testing cadence.
Encryption: In-transit + at-rest, customer-managed keys (BYOK), hardware enclaves option.
Access control: Granular RBAC, MFA, session logging, least-privilege IAM policies.
Incident response: On-call SLA, forensic preservation, runbook & notification windows.
Pricing & SLA: Clear egress/restore costs, financial SLAs for availability and recovery.

Why this matters in 2026

Late-2025 and early-2026 trends make these questions urgent. Immutable backups and air-gapped/isolated recovery are standard defenses against a string of high-profile ransomware incidents in 2023–2025. Confidential computing and hardware enclave options moved from enterprise-only to wider availability in 2025, enabling stronger protections for customer PII. Regulators have also tightened expectations on breach notification and data portability — meaning your host's controls determine your legal exposure and operational resilience.

Start here: a 12-question vetting checklist for SMBs

Ask these questions verbatim when you interview prospective hosts. Record their answers in writing and add them to your procurement checklist.

Backup & restore (Operational resilience)

What are your RTO and RPO for CRM workloads? — Confirm concrete numbers (e.g., RTO ≤ 4 hours, RPO ≤ 15 minutes) and the SLA credits if missed.
How are backups stored and where? — Multi-region vs single region, encryption at rest, and whether backups are stored on the same storage array or logically/physically separated.
Do you provide immutable backups (object lock / WORM)? — Immutable retention prevents deletion or tampering during retention windows; essential for ransomware defense and legal holds.
How often do you run restore drills and can we join? — Quarterly restore tests are a reasonable baseline; you should be allowed to observe or request a test for your data.
What retention tiers are available and what are the restore costs? — Clarify retention (days/years), and the egress or restore fees for each storage tier (standard, infrequent access, archive).

Encryption & key management

Is data encrypted in transit and at rest? — TLS 1.2+/modern cipher suites for transit and AES-256 or equivalent for rest are minimums.
Do you offer customer-managed keys (BYOK) and HSM-backed KMS? — BYOK and Hardware Security Module (HSM) support let you retain control over decryption capability.
Can we perform client-side encryption? — If yes, confirm how this impacts search/functionality in the CRM and any indexing limitations.

Access control, identity & governance

What IAM controls exist for storage and CRM components? — Ask for role definitions, least-privilege policies, service-account best practices and how access is segregated between ops and support teams.
Do you enforce MFA for privileged actions and admin consoles? — MFA (including hardware tokens) should be mandatory for admin roles and key management actions.
Are access logs immutable and how long are they retained? — Retain logs long enough for forensic investigations (90–365 days is common); ensure log integrity (signed logs).

Incident response & SLAs

What is your incident response SLA and escalation path? — Get phone and pager-level contacts, expected response times for security incidents, and on-site availability if required.
Do you provide forensic preservation and chain-of-custody support? — Essential if you face a breach and need legal evidence or regulatory reporting.
Do you publish historical availability and recovery performance? — Ask for monthly uptime stats and recent post-mortems for relevant outages.

Storage types — which fits CRM data?

Different CRM components map to different storage types. Use this guide to decide what your host should offer and price transparently.

Object storage (S3-compatible)

Best for: Attachments, email archives, exports, long-term backups, and audit logs.
Why choose: Cost-effective, durable (11x9s), lifecycle policies (Standard > Infrequent > Archive), and immutable features like S3 Object Lock or equivalent.
Cost drivers: Capacity (GB-month), API request costs, egress, retrieval fees from archive classes.
Ask the host: Are S3 GET/PUT/DELETE costs documented? Do you provide a pricing calculator for restores?

Block storage

Best for: CRM application databases (e.g., MySQL/Postgres), transactional storage requiring low latency and high IOPS.
Why choose: Consistent I/O performance, snapshotting for fast recovery, and suitability for managed DB instances.
Cost drivers: Provisioned size (GB), IOPS charges, snapshot storage, and possible reserved or burst pricing.
Ask the host: How do snapshots work across AZs/regions and what are restore performance metrics?

File storage (NFS/SMB)

Best for: Shared file repositories, legacy CRM attachments referenced by on-prem or hybrid apps.
Why choose: POSIX semantics, locking, and simple lift-and-shift of older applications.
Cost drivers: Capacity, throughput tiers, and cross-protocol gateway licenses.
Ask the host: Do you support quotas, snapshot schedules and cross-region replication for file stores?

Provider tiers & how they affect CRM protection

Hosts usually sell tiered offerings that change protection features. Understand the delta between tiers.

Entry / Shared hosting

Low cost but limited controls. Backups may be coarse (file-level, weekly) with no immutable retention. Not recommended for CRM with PII or revenue-critical data.

VPS / Managed VPS

Improved isolation and custom configs. Backup features vary by plan; ensure snapshot cadence and off-machine archived backups exist.

Dedicated/Cloud VM + Managed Services

Full control over storage types (block, file, object). More options for BYOK, HSM, and custom IAM. Costs higher but necessary for production CRM.

Managed DB / Platform tiers

Managed databases (RDS/Aurora equivalents) can simplify patching and backups. Verify retention policies and whether backups are encrypted with customer keys.

Enterprise / Dedicated-cloud

Includes SOC2, ISO certifications, custom SLAs, and advanced incident response. Best for SMBs needing highest assurance and compliance but at premium cost.

Pricing transparency — the hidden risk for SMBs

SMBs frequently underestimate ongoing costs. Confirm these specifics in writing:

Egress & restore fees: How much to restore a 50GB, 500GB, or 5TB dataset?
API request charges: High-frequency CRM integrations can generate thousands of object requests daily.
Snapshot storage: Do snapshots incur full storage or incremental costs?
Archive retrieval timing & cost: If archive class restores take hours/days, what are expedited restore fees?
Support & IR costs: Is incident response included or billed hourly at escalation?

Operational best practices to require in contract

Negotiating these items into your SLA and contract moves protection from hope to enforceable practice.

Quarterly restore test: Host must perform documented restore drills and share results.
Immutable backup retention windows: Minimum 90 days for initial hold; longer for legal/archive needs.
BYOK & emergency key-escrow: Customer controls keys; host provides sealed escrow process only for declared disaster scenarios.
Dedicated incident contact: Named escalation with phone/pager and guaranteed response times.
Financial SLA credits: For missed RTO/RPO or availability targets tied to meaningful credits.

Sample real-world scenarios

Two anonymized SMB examples illustrate practical outcomes.

Case: Marketing agency — saved by object lock

A 12-person agency stored client contracts and attachments on an S3-compatible bucket. When a staff laptop was compromised and credentials used to delete many objects, immutable retention (object lock) and cross-region replication bought the necessary time to restore without paying ransom. The host's documented restore process returned services in under 6 hours. Lesson: immutable object retention + a tested restore plan prevents extortion-based downtime.

Case: Regional retailer — hidden restore fees

A retailer switched to a lower-cost provider to save storage costs. During a DB corruption incident, they discovered restore egress and expedited retrieval fees exceeded projected savings. They negotiated a revised contract with capped restore fees and added a managed snapshot archive to reduce future surprises. Lesson: calculate worst-case restore costs before choosing the host.

Actionable steps you can take in the next 30 days

Run the 12-question vetting checklist during vendor evaluation or renewals.
Request a formal, dated answer for each checklist item and attach it to the contract.
Schedule a restore drill with your current host — run it on a non-production snapshot and measure RTO/RPO.
Enable immutable retention for backups and audit that object-lock or snapshot immutability is enforced.
Enable MFA for all admin accounts and rotate keys; consider BYOK for sensitive datasets.

What to avoid

Signing vague language like "industry-standard" without definition — ask for specifics.
Assuming free backups exist — confirm retention, recovery testing and costs.
Ignoring egress and API costs during planning — model three restore scenarios: 50GB, 500GB, 5TB.

Checklist summary (copyable)

Copy this into your procurement form.

RTO & RPO numbers and SLA credits
Immutable backup support and retention policy
Backup storage location and multi-region replication
Quarterly restore drills & published results
Encryption in transit + at rest, BYOK/HSM support
Client-side encryption option and implications
Granular IAM, MFA for admin actions, RBAC
Immutable access logs & retention duration
Incident response SLA, contact escalation & forensic support
Clear pricing for storage, API calls, egress, snapshots, and restores
Compliance certifications (SOC2/ISO/HIPAA if relevant)
Contractual restore cost caps and financial SLA credits

Note: For SMBs, the cheapest host rarely wins when data protection is the priority. Transparent costs and verifiable recovery capabilities matter more than raw price per GB.

Future-proofing: what to watch in 2026+

Expect more hosts to offer:

Confidential computing endpoints for processing customer data with hardware attestation.
Finer-grained billing transparency — restore simulators and worst-case calculators embedded into portals.
Integrated immutable air-gapped vaults as a standard add-on to block ransomware risk.
Stronger regional controls as data sovereignty rules and portability expectations mature.

Final takeaways

SMBs that treat CRM protection as a procurement priority are far less likely to suffer long, expensive outages. Use the 12-question checklist and short summary above to hold hosts accountable for the capabilities you need: immutable backups, clear recovery SLAs, encryption you control, strict access controls, and a documented incident response. Negotiate those capabilities into your contract and verify them with quarterly drills.

Call to action

Need help evaluating hosts against this checklist? Contact our team at storages.cloud for a free 10-point CRM hosting audit or download the printable one-page checklist to use in procurement. Protect revenue and customer trust — verify your host today.

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