Why data storage is an integral part of a CISO’s IT security strategy

By Florian Malecki, Vice-President – International Product Marketing, Arcserve

Johannesburg, 02 Dec 2021

In a recent survey conducted by Dimensional Research, 96% of IT decision-makers reported they are worried about ransomware attacks. Only one in five are very confident they could recover from a ransomware attack. With attacks becoming increasingly sophisticated, CISOs have stepped up protection of their business with prevention solutions, such as firewalls, identity and access management and passwords, but one challenge remains – data storage.

Understanding the importance of immutable storage

When a company falls victim to a cyber attack, every second of business downtime is painful and expensive and can result in a loss of $5 600 per minute, according to Gartner. The prevention measures mentioned above are essential for security. However, CISOs also need data protection to achieve their primary objective of data security and availability. How well they achieve this depends on data backup and storage.

These solutions underpin all business operations and are prime targets for hackers during cyber attacks. They should, therefore, also be the top priority when preparing data security policies. These backup and immutable storage solutions protect data in case of an attack or any other business disaster. They are the last line of defence that guarantees data security and availability.

Establishing data immutability for optimal security

Implementing a holistic approach to data security by integrating an immutable data storage solution is crucial, as it strengthens data resilience. A business can never stop cyber attacks, but neutralising their effects can ensure business continuity, which is critical.

The most important step for a company that wants to protect itself against ransomware is to backup files regularly and store them using an immutable storage solution. The most sophisticated attacks make it possible to encrypt both the files and the recovery points. An immutable snapshot is a copy of your data that ransomware or a user cannot modify or delete. An organisation can quickly recover data written to an immutable data storage solution following data corruption or deletion, ransomware attacks or other issues. Indeed, users can independently recover their data by looking through their files on Windows Explorer or Finder on a Mac. There’s no need to recover data using the previous day’s backup – users look through the files and select the data they want to restore. Arcserve OneXafe does just that and is the most efficient immutable data storage solution on the market. OneXafe also offers inline deduplication and compression to reduce the data footprint.

As well as making their teams aware of security risks, CISOs must also increase their awareness of the importance of data storage. Data security policies are often limited to the basics and are not robust enough in today’s world, where the number of attacks is rising. Data is a huge money-maker for hackers, so businesses should be asking not if, but when they will become a ransomware victim. Now is the time to change your information security strategy and incorporate a holistic approach to data protection.

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