Ransomware attacks are becoming more sophisticated. But what can organizations do to protect themselves? A key to protecting corporate data is the use of an immutable backup on an appropriate storage system.
Ransomware attacks exploit vulnerabilities to penetrate organizations. They encrypt business data and try to extort high ransom payments. Healthcare is a particularly hard-hit industry.
Healthcare: Attacks up 755 percent
It saw a staggering 2021 percent increase in ransomware attacks in 755. But that's not all. According to the Cyber Threat Report 2022, global attacks more than doubled in the past year. According to this, a company is attacked by ransomware every eleven seconds. The annual damage: 20 billion US dollars.
Many IT departments rely on creating backup copies so that in the event of a successful attack, they can restore data to a current state as quickly as possible and avoid having to pay ransoms. Cyber criminals are also aware of these protective measures. That is why they are now increasingly attacking backup infrastructures, deleting backup copies and encrypting the primary production data, for example.
Immutable backups as keys
A key to protecting corporate data is the use of immutable backups. They provide reliable data protection because the immutable copies of the backup data are inaccessible to ransomware, leaving the attackers no chance of accessing the data in any way. Immutability of backups means that the data is converted into a format where it can only be written once and read multiple times.
They cannot be deleted or changed - neither by hackers nor by administrators. There is no way to read or undo the immutable data. Thus, immutable backups ensure that the data, once captured, is available forever in that form.
Unchangeable means unchangeable
Even if attackers get their hands on compromised admin credentials and gain full access to a network, immutability prevents the copies from being deleted and the data state from being altered. Companies that rely on immutable backups no longer have to worry about ransomware attacks and ransom demands. Even if a company's primary data infrastructure is compromised, a reliable copy of the primary data is always available for recovery.
Immutable backup for everyone
There's just one problem: many companies still don't understand the appeal of immutable backups. Although awareness of this method is slowly growing, there is a lack of awareness of the storage systems required for immutable backups. There are already inexpensive solutions that enable companies to quickly and easily implement a storage system that offers them ultimate protection.
Snapshots ensure continuous protection
Several elements are critical to immutable data protection. The first is immutable object storage, where each object is only written once and never modified. Any change made to the file system always creates new objects. With this type of continuous data protection, snapshots are created every 90 seconds. Snapshots are the views of a file system at a specific point in time. This makes the underlying objects immutable, so they cannot be changed or modified by an external source either. Snapshots allow companies to go back to a specific point in time and restore the entire data system based on these snapshots within minutes.
Another key component of an immutable storage system is a scale-out object-based storage architecture. Many traditional solutions are inadequate because they have limited scalability and performance. Once an organization reaches the limit of scalability, the only option is to add another array with separate management, or tediously replace the existing array. Object-based storage already offers individually scalable storage options, ie drives and applications can be added individually.
Intelligent tiering saves money
The third element of immutable storage is intelligent data tiering. An ideal storage system uses analytics to identify frequently or very rarely used data. In this way, companies receive an intelligent data architecture that enables quick access to business-critical information. It also enables organizations to reduce data storage costs while protecting their critical business data from disasters.
For example, in a law firm, all legal documents are automatically classified as data that must be saved in their original form. The same applies to financial services companies. Here, all journals and general ledger entries are automatically classified as business-critical. Based on these guidelines, companies can customize their backup and disaster recovery requirements and thus build up optimal protection against ransomware attacks. A positive side effect: even historical data can be restored if necessary.
Protection against data loss is essential. Immutable backups offer companies the best possible conditions to react quickly in the event of a successful ransomware attack without having to give in to scammers' ransom demands.
More at Arcserve.com
About Arcserve Arcserve offers exceptional solutions to protect the valuable digital assets of companies that require complete and comprehensive data protection. Arcserve was founded in 1983 and is the world's most experienced provider of business continuity solutions for securing multigenerational IT infrastructures with applications and systems in any environment, on site and in the cloud. Companies in over 150 countries around the world rely on Arcserve's highly efficient, integrated technologies and expertise to reduce the risk of data loss and prolonged downtime while reducing the cost and complexity of data backup and recovery by up to 50 Reduce percent. Arcserve is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota with numerous locations around the world.