While immutability is nothing new, it is a valuable feature that most organizations still don’t take advantage of. Leveraging data immutability via Object Lock (Object Lock is a data protection feature wherein a user can designate certain files or “objects” to be immutable) is also more likely to provide fast response and recovery should an attack occur. Immutability is a key tool in mitigating the negative effects of ransomware attacks from the start because it prevents anyone from tampering with or stealing data regardless of intention. In addition to this expanded best practice for backups, Object-level immutability presents one such capability that yields obvious benefits for protecting an organization’s data.
Backup provider Veeam has turned this rule up to “11,” adding guidance that also includes 1 copy should be immutable and there should be 0 issues with data integrity. Three copies of the data, 2 different types of media/systems, and 1 copy at a remote site. Ensuring you have a solid backup and recovery strategy can be the simple difference between paying huge ransoms to keep your business running or simply recovering your backup. In 2022, we will see more organizations leverage additional storage capabilities to help mitigate the effects of ransomware attacks. If they are not, what should they do to be more proactive with their readiness? Fighting ransomware with immutabilityīecause ransomware attacks are on the rise, this begs the question of whether organizations are adequately prepared to recover quickly and with minimal impact to themselves, their partners and customers. By adequately protecting and retaining data you can avoid expensive regulatory fines and penalties, and costly legal actions and settlements. If desired, one can also configure the storage bucket to automatically delete the data after the retention period has expired.įor example, if you need to comply with certain government and industry regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) or Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS), immutability helps you secure and preserve electronic records, transaction data and activity logs. It enables users to designate certain files as objects that cannot be tampered with by anyone, even a systems administrator, for a specific period of time. Immutability in cloud storage follows the same principle. What is immutability?Īccording to Merriam Webster, immutable refers to something that is not capable of or susceptible to change.
Encryption on the fly and at rest is helpful, but organizations should also take advantage of immutable features that exist and far too many still don’t.
There are a variety of anti-malware and decryption products available to protect your system, but one of the simplest ways to keep your data safe is by performing regular backups, ideally keeping at least one backup copy offsite. In the case of ransomware, like everything else, a good defense is the best offense. With the backups either deleted or under the cybercriminal’s control, they then deploy the ransomware.
Veeam backup encryption download#
Recently we’ve seen instances where cybercriminals have been able to access victims’ networks through exposed remote desktop services and gain access to cloud credentials to use them to delete previous backups or download them to servers under the cybercriminals’ control. They may or may not be able to affect previous backup jobs, but that recovery point will not be available. Although the vast majority of ransomware attacks are initiated on-premises from URL downloads, direct files, exploit kits, and infected USB flash drives, those viruses can be uploaded to the cloud in a backup job.