Cyber-security has traditionally been seen as a “technical” problem with little interest for the business. Not any more! In recent years, the prevalence and growth of threats like ransomware have seen cyber-security catapulted to the forefront of mainstream business consciousness.
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Contributed by Nathan Wilson, Redstor.
Cyber-security has traditionally been seen as a “technical” problem with little interest for the business. Not any more! In recent years, the prevalence and growth of threats like ransomware have seen cyber-security catapulted to the forefront of mainstream business consciousness.
As business leaders have become more aware of threat and potential impact of cyber-attacks, the importance of a complete cyber-security strategy has never been higher.
Technology now plays a more active role in how every organisation operates. Technologies such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom are shaping how users collaborate daily and SaaS platforms like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace are changing how organisations deploy solutions. But these technologies only underpin the real value in an organisation - business data. Critical business information has become a valuable and targetable asset in its own right.
Cyber-criminals, hackers and malicious actors understand this more than most.
In a report published in August 2021, global analysts IDC stated¹ that ‘87% of organisations that reported experiencing a ransomware attack/breach are paying a ransom’ and that the average ransom payment was almost a quarter million dollars.
And of course, ransomware is not the only cyber threat associated with data breaches. Data loss, corruption of data, downtime, lost production, remediation costs, customer confidence and many other aspects impact an organisation subject to cyber-attack on their critical data.
The National Cyber Security Centre - NCSC² - release regular guidance on the latest threats that organisations are facing. Always high up on the list are malicious threats such as ransomware and malware.
Their first recommendation for an organisation to stay protected is to make regular backups.
By having a secure, and importantly air gapped, backup solution in place, organisations have the option of recovering data should it become infected with ransomware. What do we mean by ‘air-gap’?
An air gapped backup solution ensures there is a layer of protection between the live copy of data and the backed-up copy, so that the backups cannot also become corrupted. This often means it is stored away from the primary network.
In addition to being the lifeline for recovery, a secure backup strategy can provide additional benefits such as more flexible information retention periods, secure access controls and compliance with the GDPR, in particular enabling an organisation to ‘restore access and availability to personal data in a timely manner in the event of a physical or technical incident’³.
Precursor Security is a CREST certified cyber security consultancy with one mission: to help you protect your business, whatever your needs and your budget. We work with all types and sizes of companies at all stages of their security journey. We offer vulnerability scanning and CREST certified penetration testing to ensure your security stands up to scrutiny.
In particular we recommend to all our clients that they implement cyber-secure backup as item #1 on their cyber checklist.
Cyber-secure backup must be item #1 on your cyber checklist.
Working with leading data management specialist, Redstor⁴, Precursor Security gives organisations the ability to securely protect their most valuable data, regardless of where it is stored, in a single, intuitive application.
A fully cloud based solution with no requirement for hardware, Redstor can be set up in a matter of minutes, ensuring data is protected against data loss, corruption and even ransomware. By utilising Redstor’s InstantData™ technology, users can gain access to their data in moments, with streamed on-demand access to data.
(1) https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS48159121
(2) https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance/mitigating-malware-and-ransomware-attacks
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