This is why write-only backups aren't just a good idea; like gravity, it's the law. I know funding for these things are on a shoestring budget, but there should have been an external service to ensure backups are being made on a regular basis. Or else, you don't know something's wrong until something's really, really wrong.

Check those dates more closely ;)

It was exactly 31 days later, but still on a reasonable schedule for a monthly backup. Either the backups where disabled or the staff don't trust the backups they do have (though that seems unlikely, given that it would allow them to recover the content offline without having to execute any of the backing code)