Forget ransomware and other exotic attacks, what happens if after 7 years your hard drive decides to die on you?
I don't know. The backup is the first thing that needs to be setup and tested when you buy a computer. Windows and Mac have build-in systems for point-in-time backups and linux offers more than a few solutions.
Backup, backup and backup again :-)
I don't think current operating systems go anywhere near far enough in helping users to get this right. When I buy a computer, the computer should be in charge of ensuring that catastrophic data loss cannot easily occur. 9 times out of 10, the user simply doesn't know how to set things up that way.
Specifically, the axes of security are integrity, authentication, and availability. Backups give the illusion of helping both integrity and availability. However, without practiced and verified recovery plans, they do neither.
Which isn't fair of me. I think people do realize it. Just making the time to regularly repeat something you have done before is tough.
I am very sympathetic to the idea that you can automate this. However, this seems to typically fall afoul of the idea that you now just have more that can and will fail. So now you need something to monitor that....
Test your restore process periodically!
But how does one test restoring personal data? I'm guessing that most people, like me, don't buy duplicate laptops just to be a platform for testing their data restoration protocols.
Truer words were seldom written!!