Why a Ransomware Preparedness Plan
The average ransomware attack cost was $3.86 million in 2019, with one business being attacked every 11 seconds. Gartner estimates that up to 75% of IT companies will be affected by ransomware attacks in 2025.
Ransomware has become a profitable and economically viable business for many companies, putting the IT industry at serious risk. Cyber insurance does not cover ransomware. Instead of paying the ransom, companies pay it. Ransomware will continue affecting more companies, so it’s not surprising that this is a growing problem.
A comprehensive ransomware readiness plan matures your response plans which decrease the chance of successful ransomware attacks and reduces the impact of the incident via mature recovery strategies.
Most businesses will test restore their data after a data breach. It is expensive to shut down a working data system and then restore it for testing purposes. This is a risk that most businesses don’t want to take. Data systems testing is an enterprise decision that should be taken at all levels of the organization and is critical to any strategic goal.
Keep IT updated
Do IT professionals need to budget for ransomware, or not? Not entirely.
A robust backup system is the best defense against ransomware. A company that has a robust backup system and routine testing can recover your data quickly and cost less than the ransom. The key is to act immediately.
Ransomware is a type of ransomware that damages your system’s backup and uses your company’s data to extort you. This highlights the importance of having control mechanisms in place to deal with the complications of data breaches. The right tools and assessments are key to determining the best control for your company.
Multifaceted response team
It is essential to have a multi-disciplinary approach with your backup and security teams to be proactive in responding to ransomware attacks. These practices are crucial to address strategies to not only repel but also to recover fully in the event of an attack by ransomware.
While current recovery strategies can be used to address data and operational issues, they are not able to deal with a ransomware attack. The first and most important step is to develop a ransomware response and readiness program.
Cyberthreats will increase due to the rise of multi-cloud and hybrid data management. Cloud deployment is quickly becoming a popular choice.
Identify key performance indicators (KPIs) and create a solution using the following data protection focus areas.
- Single software platform
- License model that includes everything
- There is no cloud tiering tax from or to the cloud
- Software licensing is independent of hardware
- Global support in-country with onsite resources for break-fix
- Support for global languages
- Extensive workload support
- Protect Docker containers with certification
- Agentless, modern, next-generation workload protection
- Self-contained granular Exchange recovery
- Functionality restored by self-contained bare steel
- Ability to protect filer information with NDMP
- GUI supports multiple concurrent restores
- Backup VMware without VM proxy requirements
- Protection of Active Directory
- Global deployment capabilities
- Intelligent policy queries and automated hands-off data protection
- Product limits imposed on resource resources
- Integration with business continuity management tools
- Support for BYO environments
- Converged first-party appliance purpose-built appliances
- Scale-up architecture that allows for scalability and simplicity
- Predictable availability, and resilience
- Appliances with active-active high availability
- No nightly reindexing of metadata/catalog
- Agent-based, client-side duplication
- Global deduplication is not restricted to workloads
- Higher capacity, faster backups, lower floorspace for lower TCO
- Minimal environmental resource requirements
- Appliances with high active-passive availability
- 140-2 FIPS compliance
- Appliances with embedded security SW and STIG rule-based hardening
- Ransomware built-in resilience
- For insights into protected data footprint, mining backup catalog
- Built-in classification policies to ensure compliance and governance
- Advanced analytics and environmental reporting
An assessment of your vulnerabilities and preparedness to recover is a powerful tool that can help you identify areas of risk in your data system and the best ways to recover them.
These steps will help you prepare for your IT strategy:
- Check your environment to ensure it conforms with NIST SP 1800-25 security standards.
- Calculate whether your data protection environment is equipped with adequate hardening, including data isolation and air gapping.
- Assess whether your business can recover from a data breach.
- Other security points that are important to your ecosystem should be identified.
Mature your organization’s data management strategy
You can easily assess your data protection, information governance, and information management practices by applying data protection and data management practice to your business.