By Eric Buckner - Senior Solutions Architect
Let’s face it. Many people in IT think that the Backup Administrator’s job is not the coolest job in IT. However, if your organization is hit with Ransomware, you can be elevated from “zero to hero” in a very short time. Cyber Terrorists need two things to make a ransomware attack work for them: a penetrated IT security system, and inadequate backups.
In 2020, Ransomware was a multi-billion-dollar operation, and because of this, it will not be going away anytime soon. Unfortunately, no IT system is 100% secure, which is why backups are so important and why they are your last line of defense against Ransomware.
In order make sure that you are as prepared as possible, your backup and recovery strategy should include all or most of the following:
1. Use your primary storage system’s snapshot functionality. Snapshots are not designed for long term backups, but rather for speedy recovery. Also, pay attention to the average size of those snapshots. Rapidly growing snapshots can be an early indication that data was encrypted as part of a ransomware attack. It also identifies the point in time you can recover to before the encryption happened.
2. Utilize the 3-2-1 method for backups:
3. Verify your backups. This is a very important, and often missed aspect of your backup strategy. Many backup solutions today have ways of automating this for you and giving you a report of successes and/or failures.
4. Employ offsite or offline backup solutions. In this case we are talking about utilizing either some sort of Tape Vaulting Providers or Private / Public Cloud Providers.
Ransomware is an ever-evolving form of malware that can expand beyond direct physical connections. The one certainty of however, is that maintaining a well-designed working backup solution will continue to serve as an effective measure against ransomware for the foreseeable future.
BlueAlly partners with industry leading Backup and Recovery solution providers and can help you find the right solution that will perfectly compliment your company’s virtual environment. Please contact your BlueAlly Account Manager or email us at [email protected] to discover ways that we can help!