More than 150 people attended SHIFT, the cyber resilience event by Commvault, which took place on February 20th in Madrid. An event that has evolved from the concept of data protection to cyber resilience, just like its name, which indicates the CHANGE of the company towards a holistic solution capable of ensuring, defending, and recovering.
The event, presented and hosted by Jaime García Cantero, analyst and director of Retina at Prisa Media, began with an introduction by Mauro Palmigiani, AVP South-Western Europe at Commvault, who highlighted that it is time to shift from cybersecurity to a cyber resilience approach. “99% of attacks are no longer directed at the data, but at security and recovery infrastructures. True resilience begins before the attack starts and never ends. It’s time to fight attackers, to adopt a new approach to address cyber threats as they evolve.”
Following this intervention, Juan Delfín Peláez, responsible for the Financial and ICT Strategic Sector at INCIBE-CERT, took the stage. Peláez reviewed cybersecurity trends in Spanish companies and explained that last year, the organization managed over 118,000 cybersecurity incidents. “70% of large companies in Spain have an acceptable level of cyber resilience. But we are talking about the most cutting-edge ones.” The expert also explained that the financial and energy industry sectors are the best prepared for cyber incidents. “Other sectors, such as transportation, healthcare, or food, have a lower maturity level.”
The next session was led by César Cid de Rivera, VP International Sales Engineering at Commvault, who presented Commvault Cloud Powered by Metallic IA, a unique cyber resilience platform built to meet the needs of hybrid environments. “With Commvault Cloud, we enable companies to protect data, anticipate risks, minimize risks, and quickly recover from any threat. And we do this in any environment and with any workload, from legacy to kubernetesKubernetes (commonly referred to as “K8s”)….” The executive also spoke about the security capabilities of the platform, which uses AI to detect and combat threats. “Attacks today are no longer human attacks against our systems. Now attacks are polymorphic, carried out through AI. And AI can only be combated with AI.”
Challenges for CIOs and CISOs
Two of the most interesting moments of the day were the roundtable discussions dedicated to CIOs and CISOs. In the first one, involving David Vidal, CIO at the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, and Pablo de la Puente, CIO at Gestamp, the role of AI in improving security was highlighted. “Without AI, the vast amount of data to analyze would be unthinkable. That’s why it is necessary to address cyber threats that also use AI for their attacks,” said Pablo de la Puente. Vidal, on the other hand, emphasized the importance of conducting security tests in cloud and on-premise environments. “For me, clean points are key. You need to identify which data needs to be recovered and run tests to ensure recovery in case of a disaster.”
The second roundtable, featuring Roberto Villanueva, head of Cybersecurity Leadership at the Ministry of Defense, and Elena García Díez, CISO at Indra, focused on cyber defense. “Strategies based on walls are no longer efficient. We need to move towards comprehensive security that leverages all available technologies,” commented Elena García. “In addition, we need to understand that cybersecurity is a joint effort: technologies, people, and processes.”
“There is a paradigm shift because we are no longer in organizations with a perfectly delineated perimeter, but it is becoming increasingly blurred,” indicated Roberto Villanueva. “AI is changing us all, and we must use AI as the opponent does. We need to use AI in a way that allows us to prevent what the adversary will do.” The Defense expert also highlighted the need for national talent and research to develop technology and security procedures.
Moment of alliances to strengthen cyber resilience
There was also time for Commvault’s alliances, which showcased their innovations in cyber resilience. Microsoft and HP, Platinum sponsors of the event, took the stage to share their vision with attendees. “Data is the most important asset that organizations have. And cybercriminals know that. That’s why we need to create a holistic architecture that we must build together,” said David Zurzo, Hybrid Presales IT Consultant at Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
Javier Campello Gallarta, Partner Technical Specialist for ISV at Microsoft, discussed how to boost productivity with AI. “Our mission is to help people and organizations achieve more. And now that we are entering the era of AI, that mission is more important than ever. We must empower organizations worldwide to lead the transformation of AI into a new era.”
Hitachi, Pure Storage, and NetApp took part in the last roundtable of the day, where AI once again took center stage. “Companies need to manage increasingly more infrastructures with teams of people that do not grow at the same rate as data, so efficiency is crucial. AI helps these infrastructures, which will have their own computing and processing capabilities, to self-manage,” commented Antonio Espuela, director Technical Sales Italy, Spain & Portugal at Hitachi Vantara.
Luis Sánchez Vidal, Principal Technologist at Pure Storage, emphasized the importance of the quality of data generated by AI, as well as data governance: “New data is generated continuously through iterative processes. The quality of the data is what matters.”
According to Jaime Balañá, Solutions Engineering Manager Iberia & LatAm at NetApp, “AI will be as good as the quality of the data it feeds on.” The executive stressed the importance of having a last resort protection for that data, with a storage infrastructure capable of providing visibility, observability, and data protection.
The event also featured the collaboration of partners such as Evolutio, Logicalis, and IaaS365.
A better way to protect data
Maite Ramos, General Manager of Commvault for Iberia, was responsible for closing the presentation session. “We wanted to show that there is a better way to protect data. Nowadays, Commvault protects more than 100,000 organizations worldwide. In the last five years, we have created more than 650 patents and invested over $500 million in R&D. All focused on increasing the cyber resilience of our clients. We are dedicated to protecting data in an increasingly challenging world.”
To showcase this new way of protecting data, Kelvin González and Alfonso Díez, Sales Engineers at Commvault, conducted a practical demo of Commvault Cloud, highlighting the platform’s capabilities to detect threats, defend data, and recover it. Commvault Cloud combines data protection, security, intelligence, and recovery in one platform, with AI capabilities to address cyber threats and with the industry’s first Clean Room recovery service.
About Commvault
Commvault (NASDAQ: CVLT) is the leader in cyber resilience. The company enables customers to discover, act, and quickly recover from cyber attacks, keeping data secure and businesses resilient. The company’s unique platform, driven by AI, combines best-in-class data protection, exceptional security, advanced data intelligence, and ultra-fast recovery in any workload or cloud at the lowest total cost of ownership. For 25 years, over 100,000 organizations have relied on Commvault to keep their data secure and ready to drive business growth.