Independent Research Spotlights Ransomware Strategy Vulnerabilities

The recent Biden Administration Executive Order is pushing for improvements to the nation’s cybersecurity. In response, Arcserve recently shared findings from its independent research. The research delved into the experiences and attitudes of IT decision-makers around data protection.

The research exposed that many organizations' ransomware strategies are weak and could make it difficult to recover from an attack. And these weaknesses run the gamut of risks: lack of leadership engagement in data recovery strategies, inadequate enterprise-wide data protection measures, incomplete data recovery plans, and a failure to execute data recovery testing.

Research Points to Problems

The research findings highlight what organizations' must do to mitigate their ransomware risks better:

• Business leaders must be involved in assessing an organization’s data recovery capability.
  • Only 8 percent of respondents said their CEOs track metrics to ensure a robust data recovery plan.
  • While some CEOs do get involved, 58 percent want only basic assurances that a data recovery plan is in place without bothering to understand the details.
• Businesses must invest in better data recovery technologies.
  • Over one-third of respondents reported a data outage in the last 12 months. Even worse, more than half of those organizations were unable to recover all of their data.
• Every business must have a holistic data recovery plan in place.
  • Twenty-seven percent of respondents reported that remote and branch offices (ROBO) aren't even included in their data recovery plans.
• Data recovery plans must be battle-tested.
  • Almost a quarter of respondents—23 percent—don’t even test their data recovery plans.

It’s Time to Get Proactive

"We wholeheartedly applaud the White House initiative to improve the nation's cybersecurity and in encouraging private enterprise to take more proactive steps to protect themselves from cyberattacks better," said Tom Signorello, CEO at Arcserve. "While awareness of the devastation caused by ransomware has grown due to recent attacks on critical infrastructure and the nation's energy and food supply, many organizations' cybersecurity postures are not as robust as they should be. Protection of data from ransomware needs to be a top agenda item for executives across America. Organizations of all sizes urgently need to develop, evaluate and implement robust data protection plans."

Arcserve and StorageCraft, an Arcserve company, advise organizations to step up their ransomware preparedness by assessing and testing their prevention and remediation processes. These steps are in direct alignment with the White House advice that business executives review their corporate security posture and business continuity plans to ensure the ability to continue or quickly restore operations.

Prevention is Critical

The best way to mitigate the consequences of a ransomware attack is to avoid one in the first place. That’s why Arcserve and StorageCraft recommend that all critical systems are backed up using immutable backup technology. Continuous, immutable data snapshots can’t be overwritten or deleted by ransomware attackers. And, if you are the victim of a ransomware attack, immutable snapshots keep your data protected and completely immune to any modification or deletion.

Remediation Matters Most

While immutable snapshots ensure your organization can recover from an attack, how fast you recover is just as critical. You need to have a well-defined, fast and orchestrated recovery plan in place. That plan needs to cover your entire infrastructure, not just your data center. With the ability to restore data from the known recovery point that wasn't impacted by the attack, you can get back to normal operations in minutes—without paying a ransom or losing data.

To learn more about proactive ransomware defense and orchestrated recovery, watch this on-demand webinar from Arcserve.

Take the First Step

Following these straightforward steps will take you well on your way to reliable data protection. Arcserve and StorageCraft provide the industry's broadest range of best-in-class data management, protection, and recovery offerings for on-prem, off-prem, hyper-converged, cloud, and edge data infrastructures. To learn more, contact Arcserve today.

About the Research: Dimensional Research conducted research with a total of 709 qualified respondents. All respondents had budget or technical decision-making responsibility for data management, data protection, and storage solutions at a company with 100-2,500 employees. The survey was fielded in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, United Kingdom, and the United States.