Defend Your Data From the Ransomware Attacks Targeting Your Backups

Data is your company’s lifeblood, and that makes it a target. So, if it seems like cybersecurity events, particularly ransomware attacks, have become increasingly common in recent years, you’re not imagining things.

According to the 2021 Annual Threat Monitor Report from NCC Group, from 2020 to 2021, ransomware attacks rose by over 92%. In fact, a more recent report released by ConnectWise revealed “a continued rise in MSP-focused ransomware attacks,” with ransomware accounting for 40% of the 500 incidents.

Additionally, US President Joe Biden signed an Executive Order to support the nation’s cybersecurity posture by warning the Private Sector of the looming surge of cyberattacks posed to cripple security infrastructures. However, one thing has become crystal clear, while you can hope for the best, you need to prepare for the worst.

And while ransomware is lucrative for cybercriminals, it’s problematic for every organization. Successful companies recognize that their data accelerates innovation, strengthens analytics and drives strategy. So not having access to it suddenly can be devastating.

You know this, and unfortunately, hackers know this. And the way many companies have architected their data platforms only adds to the problem. Sony Kogin, Solutions Marketing Director at Cohesity, a next-generation data management and a Rackspace Technology® partner, explains it perfectly in a recent blog post: “The crux of the problem is legacy data management’s architecture is siloed. It’s a patchwork of single-purpose products, including backup, target storage and archives. Ransomware thrives in silos.”

Even in the “best” of cases, it can cost you a significant amount of money to regain access to your data. According to the Sophos State of Ransomware 2021 report, payments can reach as high as $3.2 million.

Mitigation is Key

So, how do you prepare? Well, avoidance is nearly impossible. Cybercriminals move at a pace that would make Silicon Valley blush. Cybercrime-as-a-service is on the rise, lowering the barriers to entry for hackers and increasing the risks for businesses. But, as Armor correctly surmised in their recent Dark Market series of reports, “the cybercriminals participating in these businesses are resilient, innovative, and agile.”

So, what to do? You need to make sure you have the systems and processes in place to minimize the impact of ransomware. Cohesity advocates taking a three-prong approach: Prevent, Detect, and Respond. What’s that entail exactly?

Protect. While there’s no 100% surefire way to prevent ransomware attacks, you can take additional measures in your prevention approach. One way you can do this is to focus on off-site data isolation and immutable secured backups to help protect your data from becoming a target.

Detect. It takes an average of 287 days to detect a data breach. While being ever vigilant is an excellent idea, the evolving techniques employed by cybercriminals make this a daunting task. But by using the powerful tools available to you, such as machine learning, you can train your defenses to recognize patterns and detect breaches.

Recover. Have the systems in place to detect anomalies with actionable alerts so that you can rapidly restore your data at scale. This step is all about getting back up and running while avoiding further disruption.

Via our partnership with Cohesity, our data protection offering addresses four critical aspects of ransomware readiness:

• A Single, Simple Solution.
• Ransomware Remediation.
• Rapid Recovery at Scale.
• Scaling While Shrinking Data and Storage Footprint.

The sooner you start treating ransomware as a “when” and not an “if,” the better off you’ll be.

Data disruptions can slow down your business and adversely impact customer experiences. Rackspace Technology can help ensure your privacy is protected and your data is always in your control.

Learn more about how Rackspace Technology and Cohesity team up on VMware® Cloud Data Protection.