Data Storage: An Integral Part of Every CISO’s IT Security Strategy

By Florian Malecki, Executive Vice President, Marketing, Arcserve

Ransomware is on every IT pro’s mind these days. In a recent survey conducted by Dimensional Research, 96 percent of IT decision-makers reported worrying about ransomware. Just one in five of those respondents said they are very confident they could recover from a ransomware attack. Another study by Sophos supports these concerns: 37 percent of respondents—all IT decision-makers—said they were hit by ransomware the previous year, and 54 percent said the cybercriminals succeeded in encrypting their data.

As ransomware attacks become increasingly sophisticated, CISOs have ramped up their protection and attack prevention solutions, including firewalls, identity and access management, and password hygiene. But data storage is still a challenge.

Your Last Line of Defense: Data Backup and Storage Solutions

If your company falls victim to a cyberattack, every second your systems are down is costly and painful. Over 60 percent of Uptime Institute’s 2021 Global Data Center Survey respondents reported losing more than $100,000 to downtime. Of that, 60 percent lost over $1 million. While the prevention measures noted above are essential for security, CISOs also need data protection if they are going to meet their primary requirements: data security and availability. Achieving that goal depends on a sound backup and storage solution.

Data backup and storage solutions are the foundation of business operations. That makes them a prime target for hackers. And that should also make them your top priority as you develop your data security policies. An effective backup and immutable storage solution protects your data if you suffer an attack—or any other business disaster. Think of data backup and storage as your last line of defense, ensuring data security and availability no matter what.

Why Immutable Storage Matters

Strengthening your data resilience takes a holistic approach to data security. A crucial element of that approach is immutable data storage. While you can never stop cyberattacks, you can neutralize their effects by ensuring business continuity.

The most important step you can take to protect your company against ransomware is to back up your files regularly to an immutable storage solution. An immutable snapshot is a copy of your data that ransomware—or any user—can’t modify or delete. The most sophisticated snapshots let you encrypt both your files and your recovery points. That means you can quickly recover data written to these immutable storage solutions, whether the cause of the disaster is data corruption, accidental deletion, a ransomware attack, or a data breach.

These data backup and storage solutions also let your users independently recover their data simply by looking through their files on Windows Explorer or Finder on a Mac. They don’t have to recover data using the previous day’s backup. They simply find and select the data they want to restore. You’ll find these features—and more—are offered by Arcserve OneXafe. OneXafe also gives you inline deduplication and compression, reducing your data footprint and storage costs.

Keep Data Storage at the Top of Your Priority List

While ensuring your team is on top of evolving security risks is your top priority, CISOs also need to stay aware of their data storage because data is critical to success. But many data security policies are limited to basic guidelines that don’t cut it in the real world, where attacks continue to increase in volume. Hackers are getting rich thanks to unprotected businesses. You need to stay vigilant because it’s most likely “when” and not “if” you will be attacked.

Change Your Approach

If you aren’t sure your company is ready for any data disaster that comes your way, it’s time for a new data protection approach. Find an expert Arcserve technology partner to help you get there. Or contact us for more details about Arcserve’s extensive portfolio of data protection solutions.