Companies are increasingly dependent on data, so protecting it from losses, damages, and theft has become a priority for executives. Malicious programs are one of the leading causes of data loss, and ransomware, which encrypts data with an indecipherable code and renders it useless, is one of the most common forms of malicious software.
Currently, most ransomware attacks involve the theft of personal or confidential business data in order to extort organizations, increasing the cost and complexity of incidents and raising potential reputational damage. In fact, the year 2023 was characterized by a constant increase in cyber threats, with ransomware-related payments surpassing $1 billion, the highest figure ever recorded. Additionally, new regulations require greater operational resilience and therefore faster recovery times in case of disaster, even in the event of ransomware attacks.
The World Backup Day, celebrated on March 31st, serves as a valuable reminder of the need for data backup solutions, recovery strategies, and effective protection protocols. Effective data backup solutions can help reduce the risk of data loss and significantly speed up recovery.
Optimizing business security has become essential to minimize downtime resulting from ransomware attacks. According to Statista, the average downtime a company experiences after a cyber-attack is around 22 days, a concerning statistic. A recent ESG study indicates that nine out of ten respondents state that their organization cannot afford to lose more than an hour of data without significant impact on the business. Given the widespread disruption that can occur in a company after a ransomware attack, it is essential for organizations to implement the necessary technology and processes to protect themselves. But how can they do it?
Protecting data remains essential through regular backups, but it’s not enough. Implementing advanced data protection features helps companies better plan for and quickly recover from cyber-attacks and ransomware. This requires a dual approach: regularly creating “immutable copies” of data and having the necessary infrastructure to quickly restore from backups at high speed and scale.
In the event of a cyber-attack or any other data-threatening event, companies can recover critical data from their immutable copies and restore operations quickly without giving in to cybercriminal demands. True immutability means that attackers cannot encrypt or delete these backups. Modifying such copies or their frequency of use is protected by multifactor authentication, making them secure against hackers, much more resilient and reliable in case of an attack.
Then comes the ability to restore data as quickly as possible, as reliable backups are of limited effectiveness if operations cannot be quickly restored. Advanced flash-based storage solutions significantly increase data restoration speed. Leading solutions offer performance of up to several hundred terabytes per hour at scale, allowing organizations to restore their systems in hours rather than weeks, minimizing impact.
The ability to quickly restore critical services is becoming a mandatory requirement in some regulated sectors. For example, the EU’s DORA Regulation (Digital Operational Resilience Act) has been enacted to require critical banking systems to recover in under 2 hours in case of disaster, a challenging goal with traditional data protection solutions not designed for quick recovery. It’s likely that more countries and sectors will demand fast recovery of critical services.
Recovery service level agreements after ransomware attacks are now part of the solution, ensuring a clean storage environment and technical services package for post-attack recovery. This type of guarantee offers companies peace of mind, knowing they can recover safely and quickly, even if storage units are locked after an attack.
The success of an organization lies in resilience and agility when facing modern data threats. This World Backup Day serves as a timely reminder for organizations to rethink their data security approach. Promoting resilience and agility throughout the organization is crucial. By preparing critical IT infrastructure for the future and implementing modern data protection strategies with efficient data protection and restoration processes, organizations can avoid cybersecurity nightmares and downtime.