NetApp® (NASDAQ: NTAP), the intelligent data infrastructure company, has announced new cyber resilience capabilities to help customers protect and recover their data more effectively from ransomware threats. NetApp is the first company to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) directly into enterprise primary storage to combat ransomware in real time. NetApp’s cyber resilience capabilities protect companies’ primary and secondary data, whether stored locally or in the cloud.
According to Forrester, cybercriminals are increasingly targeting ransomware attacks against critical infrastructures and supply chains, where an operational disruption can result in million-dollar losses. As a result, 87% of senior executives and board members view ransomware as a high or top priority for their organization, according to NetApp’s 2023 Data Complexity Report. When cybercriminals breach perimeters, networks, and identities, storage becomes the last line of defense for companies’ critical data. With the constant threat of ransomware, companies demand solutions that not only protect their data but also enable quick recovery and restoration of operations. In response, NetApp has updated its cyber resilience solutions, harnessing the power of AI, to provide customers with the confidence that their data will be secure and accessible when needed.
“At NetApp, we are implementing a proactive strategy to protect our customers’ data against cyber threats using artificial intelligence. We are the first storage provider to explicitly and financially guarantee our data storage offerings against ransomware,” says Jaime Balañá, Technical Director of NetApp in Iberoamerica. “Today, we consolidate our leadership with new updates that enable comprehensive, continuous, and simple data defense for our customers.”
NetApp has designed data storage and management systems that maximize data protection and security while complying with data governance and compliance standards. Some of the new features include:
ONTAP Autonomous Ransomware Protection with Artificial Intelligence (ARP/AI), the latest generation of ransomware protection for enterprise storage in real-time. It detects and mitigates new and sophisticated cyber threats with the efficiency and performance needed. Three years ago, NetApp pioneered real-time autonomous ransomware detection directly in enterprise primary storage. Today, NetApp becomes the first company to use adaptive AI/ML models integrated directly into enterprise primary storage to examine file-level signals in real-time and detect even the most recent ransomware attacks with over 99% accuracy and planned recovery superior to 99%. This ARP/AI-based functionality will be available in the next quarter.
NetApp BlueXP Ransomware Protection, available in preview, provides a single control panel to intelligently coordinate and execute an end-to-end ransomware defense focused on workloads. Customers can identify and protect critical data from workloads with a single click, precisely and automatically detect and respond to potential attacks, and recover workloads within minutes, safeguarding their valuable data and minimizing costly interruptions.
Application-Aware Ransomware Protection via NetApp SnapCenter 5.0 offers immutable protection against ransomware for applications. SnapCenter applies NetApp’s latest ransomware protection technologies, previously used with unstructured data, to consistent application backups. SnapCenter 5.0 includes support for key ONTAP features such as tamper-proof Snapshot copies, protected SnapLock volumes, and SnapMirror Business Continuity to enable stronger data protection for applications and virtual machines. SnapCenter 5.0 supports application protection on-premises with NetApp AFF, ASA, and FAS, as well as in the cloud with Azure NetApp Files and Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP.
NetApp BlueXP Disaster Recovery, already available in general, seamlessly integrates with VMware infrastructure and provides storage options for both on-premises and major public cloud environments. This comprehensive solution eliminates the need for a separate standby disaster recovery infrastructure, reducing costs. With NetApp BlueXP DR for VMware, failover and failback processes are streamlined, allowing smooth transitions from local VMware infrastructure to the public cloud—including specifically Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP—or to an on-premises data center.
NetApp Keystone Ransomware Recovery Guarantee extends NetApp’s existing ransomware recovery guarantee to NetApp Keystone, the storage-as-a-service solution. NetApp ensures the recovery of snapshot data in case of a ransomware attack. If snapshot data copies cannot be recovered through NetApp, the company offers compensation*.
“Cybersecurity teams need to protect their companies’ data from constantly evolving threats, especially ransomware,” notes Archana Venkatraman, Research Director, Cloud Data Management, IDC. “NetApp’s strategy, which provides a secure and unified storage infrastructure, makes storage essential for ransomware protection and reduces the burden on cybersecurity teams. Companies looking to strengthen their cyber resilience and adopt a proactive approach will opt for providers with secure-by-design solutions that develop unified storage and data services.”
“By using NetApp in our Advanced Technology Center, we significantly simplified our replication process for VMware virtual machines and their underlying data stores to meet or exceed recovery benchmarks,” says Derek Elbert, Solutions Architect at WWT. “With NetApp solutions, we successfully established recovery policies for cloud volume workloads or virtual machines without an existing DR strategy, managing everything through NetApp BlueXP. This transforms how we operate disaster recovery for VMware.”
NetApp’s latest cyber resilience updates enable companies to proactively address cybersecurity threats in complex hybrid and multicloud environments, leveraging AI to identify threats and prevent disruptions in their operations.