Ransomware incidents increased ~34% year-over-year (2024 → 2025). Recovery costs commonly reach hundreds of thousands to millions, depending on downtime and data loss. Attackers increasingly use double extortion (encrypt + steal data). Cyber security is quickly becoming one of the most important investments for companies large and small. Organizations now rely on a multilayered cybersecurity approach that includes employee training, endpoint protection platforms, advanced threat detection (EDR/XDR), spam filtering, identity controls like MFA, and a robust backup strategy. But once data is compromised, the most reliable way to recover quickly is still to restore from clean, verified backups. How does Veeam backup help protect data against ransomware? Immutable backups Immutable backups are copies of your data that cannot be altered or deleted for a defined retention period. Veeam provides immutability through multiple options, including Linux Hardened Repositories and Object Storage with Object Lock capabilities. These technologies prevent any user—even an administrator or a ransomware process—from modifying or encrypting your backup files. Immutability ensures you always have clean, recoverable data no matter what happens in production. Air-Gapping Air-gapping keeps backup copies isolated from the network, preventing ransomware from reaching them. Traditional air-gapping uses tape media that is removed and stored offline after each backup. Today, organizations also use rotated external drives or cloud object storage tiers that remain disconnected or isolated except during backup jobs. These offline or semi-offline copies ensure that at least one version of your data remains untouched by any attack. Veeam ONE Detecting ransomware early can be challenging. Veeam ONE provides continuous monitoring and now includes advanced anomaly-detection capabilities that use behavioral analytics to identify suspicious activity. By tracking metrics such as CPU spikes, abnormal write patterns, or unusual data change rates, Veeam ONE can alert administrators in real time and help stop an attack before it spreads. Veeam SureBackup SureBackup is a feature of Veeam that allows you to create a sandbox to test your backups before restoring them to production. It can run virus and malware scans on backup sets, automatically or manually. It ensures your data is not infected without the need to restore the data somewhere first. Secure Restore Secure Restore scans backup data for malware during the recovery process, ensuring you don’t accidentally reintroduce infected files into production. Veeam now supports multiple anti-malware engines and integrates the latest virus definitions at restore time. This gives you an added layer of assurance that the data you are recovering is clean—even if the original backup was created before a threat was known. Veeam DataLabs Unsure of a workload, or suspect it may be infected? DataLabs gives you the ability to restore the data to a fully secured and isolated environment to test. A fully isolated sandbox lets you run any tests you want without impacting production systems, so you can make sure your workloads are uninfected before you restore them. Ransomware protection alliance Veeam is part of a group of leading hardware and software companies, like HPE, Cisco, and AWS, that work together to make sure their products integrate using the highest security standards possible. They bring together the most powerful recovery solutions to combat ransomware. Veeam Backup & Replication is a powerful tool in the fight against ransomware, but its effectiveness depends on how it is implemented. Following modern best practices—such as the 3-2-1-1-0 rule (three copies of data, on two media types, one off-site, one immutable or offline, and zero backup-verification errors)—dramatically improves your ability to recover quickly. Combine immutability, air-gapping, monitoring, secure restore features, and regular testing to ensure your organization is prepared long before an attack ever happens. Contact ProCern to find out more about Veeam backup and recovery solutions for your organization.
What Is Ransomware? Ransomware is a form of Malware that, once activated, can deny access to files on smartphones, personal computers, and servers. In some forms, a Ransomware attack will go beyond denial of service; and the Cyber Criminals will threaten to publish your data. As the name suggests, Ransomware offers to unlock your files if you pay a ransom. While modern day Ransomware attacks can be traced back to 2005, the history of Ransomware goes back as far as 1989. The pace of these attacks doesn’t appear to be slowing down. In 2016, many sources had payouts approaching $1 billion by the end of the year. As you might imagine, having been around for such a long time, Cyber Criminals have developed several ways to launch Ransomware attacks. Within the data center, our first goal is to keep these attacks out of our systems and away from our production data. IT Professionals protect their production environments by using firewalls, anti-virus software, proper authentication practices, and end-user education, among other measures. Despite these efforts, there is always the possibility that an attack is successful and systems are compromised. In the event our corporate files do become impacted by a Ransomware event, we must be able to rely on our data backups to restore systems and not be forced to pay a ransom. However, this begs an important question: How can we be sure that our backups are protected? This is a question that is being asked more frequently by our clients. First, we need to acknowledge that backups are not free from the risk of being attacked by Ransomware. However, there are steps that can be taken to reduce the risk of exposure, even if the Malware has found its way into the Production infrastructure. These steps fall generally into three categories: Security, Replication, and Isolation. Security Provide a dedicated host for the backup application. Disable network interfaces not in use on the hosts involved in performing backups. Restrict the number of user accounts with access to the backup application and the host onto which it is installed. Disable access to communications ports and protocols not needed for the backup operation (i.e., HTTP, FTP, Telnet, etc.). Disable accounts not used for operation of the backup process. Disable services not used for operation of the backup process. Utilize best practices for user credentials (password complexity, aging, etc.). Keep Security Patches up to date on the host and the backup application itself. Replication Maintain at least three (3) copies of the backup files on at least two (2) different types of media and keep at least one (1) of those copies offsite. (3-2-1 Rule) Consider keeping a copy of your backup on tape or on spinning disk that is not connected to the network unless backups are running. The point here is to maintain an offline copy. If replicating between backup appliances, consider building a delay into replication to keep from immediately replicating files infected with the Ransomware. This tactic may allow you time to discover the proliferation of an attack and keep it from spreading to your replication target. Utilize hardware based snapshots on Production storage arrays and backup appliances (these are not usually presented to a file system and are therefore not subject to attack). Maintain multiple restore points using snapshots and the backup software. Isolation Maintain separate hosts for the backup infrastructure. Utilize offline backup media (tape or disconnected disk targets). Utilize hardware based snapshots. Utilize Cloud connected backup targets. The steps listed above are intended to provide guidelines for protecting your backup data from Ransomware. Execution of these steps is dependent on your own infrastructure, the type of backup targets you employ, the backup software you use, etc. There are many resources available that delve into this topic in greater detail. The intent of this post is simply to make sure you are including backups in your strategy to protect the enterprise against Ransomware attacks. And, of course, ProCern is ready to help you design a strategy that fits your needs and is right for your environment.
A Moment in History: Environmental Disaster On April 26, 1986, there was a large and highly destructive steam explosion in the number 4 Nuclear Reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. This steam explosion ruptured the reactor core and caused an open air reactor core fire. This open air reactor fire went on for 9 days and spread a considerable amount of radioactive contamination over parts of the former USSR and Europe. The loss of life is and was undetermined, because of the both the secrecy of the USSR during this time and the lack of a distinct way for the medical professionals of Europe to pinpoint how many people developed cancer from this specific event. However, we do know that 2 deaths happened in the initial explosion. Twenty-eight more died in the days and weeks afterward due to acute radiation syndrome. It is considered the worst nuclear disaster in history. Data Breach Disaster In March and April 2019, a massive data breach occurred with Capital One. Thousands of users personal information, social security numbers, and bank account numbers were stolen. This breach was not discovered by Capital One until July 17, 2019, when the individual who stole the information tipped off Capital One that it happened. According to statements by Capital One, “the individual responsible was able to take advantage of a configuration vulnerability to steal sensitive records stored with Amazon Web Services”. The configuration vulnerability was a misconfigured firewall that the hacker obtained access to. 30 GB of Capital One’s sensitive information was downloaded. What makes this situation stickier, if not terrifying, is the hacker was an employee of Amazon Web Services from 2015 through 2016. It has been theorized that the hacker had some inside knowledge of how best to gain this access. According to multiple reports, this kind of breach is not uncommon with companies using a web-based cloud storage option. Companies are not changing their security procedures to match with the rapid change in the usage of the cloud. The Connection At this point you might ask, in what way are these two events similar or linked? The answer is not much. At least on the surface. For me personally, I just happened to watch a Chernobyl documentary on the same day I read of this data breach. It got my mind turning, as I researched and looked at both events. They were both disasters, but on totally different scales. One was a major environmental and human disaster, while the other will only affect people monetarily. However, if you dig deeper you can see one major theme with both events. There was a human element of mistakes due to not following proper procedures (and in some respects sheer arrogance). In both cases, awareness, understanding, and fixing the issues took way too long. This caused further damage to the millions that were affected. Disaster Awareness Seeing these similarities in such starkly different circumstances was eye opening for me. It caused me to do an introspective look at my personal and professional life. It got me asking, am I assuming too much? If I know the procedures to avert issues and disasters, does everyone around me know? Am I prepared to believe the impossible is possible, and change my way of thinking to ensure an issue does not grow into a larger disaster? How will I react when something does happen, will I panic or will I have a practiced triage process that I can move right into? How will this affect my family, my friends, my co-workers, and my work in general? You get the point. A wholesale look from top to bottom. Not surprisingly, I did find things that I can change/improve. New ways where I could be more open. I discovered several things that I did not think about before. In the end, it was refreshing and helped alleviate stress built up that I did not even know I had. Proactive Action I have promised myself that this is something I will do on a regular basis going forward. At this point in my long running internal dialog, I came to the realization that this is how customers must feel when a particularly well executed assessment is done. Or when their projects for a new backup/DR site come online. Or maybe when they change their entire IT outlook to safer, modern, and proactive technologies. Our customers, instead of waiting around for something to happen, are proactively changing the landscape to avert disasters. We as a solution provider are not changing the world, or averting disasters for millions, or developing plans for when accidents/disasters strike. It is actually our customers who are. For me, that is a really powerful thought. How wonderful is it to think that we can be there, side by side, as they work to ensure data breaches are not happening. Or how ProCern can bring up a new video surveillance system that will ensure better security for our customers and their customers? The answer to these questions is not just wonderful, it is humbling.
Keeping on topic with how our country is fairing, I thought I would touch on one of the many elephants in the room that often goes unnoticed or is ‘conveniently’ forgotten about. That elephant is named Disaster Recovery, and an organization might be called a ‘Dumbo’ if they don’t have a Disaster Recovery Plan in place. What Constitutes a Disaster? First, what constitutes a disaster in the IT world? A disaster in the IT world is defined by many different categories: Natural Disasters Hardware Error / Thefts Virus / Malware Attacks On-site Disaster (i.e. fire) Power Outages Server Room Environment Issues (i.e. Air conditioner breaks) Unexpected Updates and Patches Human Error All of the above seem to be happening on a daily basis. The question is no longer if this is going to happen to an organization, it’s WHEN is it going to happen to an organization? There’s plenty of natural disasters all year long, and they seem to continue to increase in severity. Thieves are getting more and more creative and are constantly thinking of innovative ways of hacking into even some of the most fortified infrastructures. Just ask Epsilon, Facebook, Sony, Yahoo, etc. Ransomware is nerve-racking to say the least. An organization could shell out hundreds, if not millions of dollars on the hope of possibly getting data back. Talk about a gamble! You’d have better luck at the Blackjack table. Power Outages seem to be more frequent now than ever. Rolling blackouts seems to be the trend in many states, and it’s only mid-June! And, then there is the human race and our ability to be create a cataclysmic mistake because he or she might have been having a bad day. We’ve all been there, and we all know that sometimes the slightest little thing will set us off and put a constraint on our ability to focus on the smallest of details. Even worse, there are many times where an organization knows they need to do something as soon as possible, but instead they try to wish it away or the problem will go away by itself. Disasters are like a Cancer; they aren’t going away unless treated. Steps to a Disaster Recovery Plan Now, I am not here to sell insurance to you, but to create more awareness out there that if an organization doesn’t have a plan in place, many will be filing unemployment WHEN that day happens. Before that plan is created, it may be a good idea to have an overall Disaster Recovery Assessment which will look at a company’s Server, Storage and Network Infrastructure. What usually happens is that a specialized Engineer will be onsite and also remote-in to a specific infrastructure and document the existing environment. From that environment, an Engineer will provide recommendations based on best practices and a ballpark figure of what it’s going to cost to make sure that the Disaster Recovery Plan will minimize the pain from the actual disaster as much as possible. There are some organizations out there whose pride is bigger than their brains. Don’t let ego get in the way and be a know-it-all. The reality is that organizations don’t know-it-all. Employees have been doing the work of two or three people since the early 2000s. This Disaster Recovery Plan should not be added to their list of daily duties. Swallow the pride and get a team out there who specializes in Disaster Recovery. They know what to look for, ask the right questions, uncover a weakness or threat that has gone unnoticed and may even reduce the risk of a disaster that was right around the corner. I am not an alarmist, but a realist. It’s going to happen to every organization. How prepared are you if it happens tomorrow? Good luck sleeping with that floating around in your head tonight. Contact ProCern for an assessment of your current environment and for recommendations on Disaster Recovery solutions.
Ransomware In May 2017, the National Health Service of England and Scotland was hit with the largest ransomware attack at that time. The attack affected an estimated 200,000 computers across 150 countries. The estimated economic loss ranges from hundreds of millions to four billion dollars. This attack, dubbed the WannaCry ransomware attack, catapulted network security to the top of many organization’s priority list. It brought to light the amount of damage that could be done by a malicious virus. What is Ransomware? Ransomware is a type of malicious software, or malware. It is designed to deny access to a computer system or its data until a ransom is paid. It is typically spread through phishing emails or by visiting an infected website. The virus works by encrypting all the data on the user’s hard drive. Then, it requests a payment, usually in the form of cryptocurrency, to be sent to the hackers. However, there is no guarantee the user will recover their files if they pay that ransom. Ransomware can be devastating for users and organizations. Currently, we are seeing a lot of government agencies, education organizations, and healthcare organizations targeted by these attacks. What precautions can you take? In order to protect your user’s and organization’s data, there are a number of precautions you can take. Most of which are best practice even without the threat of ransomware. First, keep all applications and operating systems up to date. Outdated apps and OS’s are the target of most attacks. This was the case in the WannaCry attack. Second, train users to avoid phishing emails. These are emails designed to look legitimate at first glance but have links that redirect you to an infected site, or attachments that download the malware directly. Phishing emails and sites are also associated with social engineering attacks designed to steal credentials. It is always a good idea to train users to never click on links or open attachments in unsolicited emails. Next, backup your data on a regular basis. Backing up your data is a good idea for a myriad of reasons. It can really save you in the case of a ransomware attack. Best practice would be to keep 3 copies of your backups, with one offline and another in a geologically separate location. These backups should also be regularly tested. A great way to control what is installed on your organization’s computers is access control. Restricting privileges may not allow malware to be installed on a system without an administrator’s approval. This will limit the spread of the malware through a network. Similarly, another useful tool for fighting malware is a spam filter on your emails. A strong spam filter will prevent most phishing emails from making it to users’ inboxes. It will authenticate inbound emails to prevent spoofing. What to do when you’ve been infected by ransomware The first thing anyone should do when infected by ransomware is to contact law enforcement immediately. You should report the infection to the FBI’s cyber task forces and internet crime complaint center. Currently, the FBI does not recommend paying any ransom. While it could cost organizations large sums of money to be down for any length of time, there is no guarantee that paying the ransom will restore your data. There are numerous cases of this happening. Some victims who have paid the ransom have even been targeted again. Other victims have even been asked to pay more after the original ransom to get all their data back. Paying may inadvertently encourage this criminal business model. This makes it more prevalent in the future. Once you have found out that you are infected, you should isolate any infected machines immediately. In addition, one should take any unaffected machines offline so they don’t get infected. Same goes for backups. They should be taken offline immediately to stop the ransomware from spreading into your backups. From there, you should follow your organization’s incident response plan. Follow any instruction given to you by law enforcement. There will never be any way that you can guarantee you won’t fall victim to one of these attacks. Malware is always evolving, just like security practices are. It will always be an arms race between hackers and security experts. Your best bet is to always follow best security practices, and to always have a plan to recover from any successful attacks. Where to report Activity FBI Cyber Task Force Internet Crime Complaint Center United States Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force Local Field Offices Contact ProCern to have an assessment done on your current infrastructure. Ask us about helpful hints to help keep your data secure.
The business of IT, that is. Data Protection, Fault-tolerance, Disaster Recovery, and Business Continuity are issues all IT Professionals deal with on some level throughout their career. As important as all four of these are to a business, until recently, only the first two have really been given any attention. In fact, Data Protection and Fault-tolerance are considered to be fundamental components of any professionally run IT environment. The basic level of Data Protection is, of course, defined by file backup and recovery solutions. When we talk with our clients about Data Protection, these discussions typically start with questions about the software used and the type of media employed to store the backups. For Fault-tolerance, the conversation revolves around discussions of redundancy in your hardware, clustering, and RAID levels. In contrast to Data Protection and Fault-tolerance, Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity have, for years, been part of the annual budgeting discussion but usually end up in the “nice to have” pile and are set aside until the next budget cycle. The cost and complexity of these solutions ended up being too expensive and require too many resources to implement. However, within the past 3 to 5 years, we have seen many of our clients elevate the Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity conversations from the “nice to have” to a “must implement” discussion. There are many factors contributing to the change, but I would contend the two biggest reasons are: The extreme dependence most businesses have on the digital world. Reverting to legal pads and cigar boxes simply aren’t options for many businesses today. The technology has made implementation of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity easier and more affordable to accomplish than ever before. With the ubiquity of virtualization today, discussions about all of these issues has changed significantly. Where once we drew well defined lines between the solutions for Data Protection, Fault-tolerance, Disaster Recovery, and Business Continuity, we are now starting to see those lines blur. To be clear, each of these issues still addresses distinctly different solution requirements. However, technology is allowing us to combine some of these requirements under one toolset.Even though one solution may cover multiple requirements defined by Data Protection, Fault-tolerance, Disaster Recovery, and Business Continuity, it’s important to go into discussions of these issues understanding the major differences between them. Data Protection – These solutions are focused on protecting files and databases from corruption or deletion. In either event, Data Protection solutions should be able to restore a file or database from a point in time. While the file or database may not contain the most recent updates, it is still better than not having it at all. Fault-tolerance – As the name implies, these solutions allow part of the hardware or software to fail without losing the entire device or application. For hardware this is accomplished through redundant power supplies and fans. It also includes the implementation of RAID on the disks or clustering for operating systems or hypervisors. Fault-tolerance is usually a protection against a local failure. Disaster Recovery – Again, as the name implies, these solutions provide the ability to recover from a disaster. In general, these solutions replicate data and applications to another location or Disaster Recovery Site. The Disaster Recovery Site will typically have compute, network and storage resources to be able to bring part or all of a production environment online in a predetermined period of time; usually defined by hours. The key here is what that period of time will be and to what point in time the data will be recovered. These are more commonly referred to as the RTO and RPO. Business Continuity – While Disaster Recovery is designed to bring a business back on line in hours or a few days, Business Continuity is designed to keep a business running in the event of a disaster or, at the very least, have the business running again in minutes and with the most up-to-date data sets. As I mentioned earlier in this post, technology today has made implementation of solutions to these four issues far easier than it used to be. However, defining the requirements and navigating through the many solution options can still be a daunting task. At ProCern, we have Solution Architects with decades of experience, who are ready to help our clients design solutions to protect their Business. With all the options available today it is important to have a partner with the expertise to design, acquire, and implement these essential solutions.In addition to experienced Solution Architects, ProCern partners with some of the most respected names in the industry to provide the hardware and software needed to implement a Business Protection plan.
It never ceases to amaze me. There’re the great big organizations who have million-dollar lobbies and healthy quarterly dividends. The CEO has a jet or six and from the outside looking in, things look like all their ducks are in a row. A facade is misleading. My last date was a facade, but that’s another subject all together. In other words, things are not always what they seem. A Lack Of Business Continuity Organizations spend millions and millions on their research & development (as they should), employee retention and many other pertinent tangibles and intangibles. However, I have noticed a significant gap in the investment in their business continuity. They may not even practice business continuity. They pay little or no attention to that gorilla in the room. Also known as a Disaster (Natural or Manual). Now some of this is due to negligence and some of this is due to that 20-something mentality that one is bullet-proof. The big ‘D’ here is Denial; the fact that it can never happen to us. We’re too big and somebody will know what to do. Well, that’s not always the case. If a catastrophe does happen (God forbid), an organization needs to have a contingency plan in place. They should also be able to quasi-predict the catastrophe before it actually happens. The Cost of Downtime Downtime in an IT infrastructure can cost an organization millions of dollars per every minute the infrastructure is down. That’s why maintenance windows are done at 1 AM and not during peak times. Could you imagine if Amazon went down on Cyber Monday? Yes, it’s an extreme example, but imagine if your organization went down. Then ask yourself the following questions: What would happen? Would our clients be adversely affected? How much money would you lose? How much data would you lose? How valuable is that data to your organization? How are we going to get it back? Who do we call? The list of questions is infinite. Your organization may not ever be able to be fully down. Imagine if a city’s fire department IT infrastructure went down? It could project total chaos. Now that I have made my point on the seriousness of an IT infrastructure going down, it’s time to make my other point. That is business continuity. Business Continuity- What is it? Wikipedia defines Business Continuity as: “ The process of creating systems of prevention and recovery to deal with potential threats to a company. In addition to prevention, the goal is to permit ongoing operation, before and during execution of disaster recovery.” The keywords in that definition is “ongoing operation.” Floods, earthquakes, cyber-attacks, human error can all affect the ‘ongoing operation’ of an organization. Having backups (quite possibly more than one) in place to keep the lights on is vital. This is a worthy investment and by investing in a Disaster Recovery plan may make you cringe, imagine the investment you would have to make if you didn’t. When did Noah build the ark? Before the storm….Before the storm…. ProCern has an IT Health Check service which is quick and not physically painful! Let us come in, understand your infrastructure and help you prevent that 10,000-year flood.
Do you have control of your Microsoft 365 data? Do you have access to all the items you need? The typical reaction is, “Microsoft takes care of it all.” Microsoft takes care of quite a bit and provides a great service for their customers. However, Microsoft’s primary focus is on managing the Microsoft 365 infrastructure and maintaining uptime to users. They are empowering YOU with the responsibility of your data. The misconception that Microsoft fully backs up your data on your behalf is quite common, and without a shift in mindset, could have damaging repercussions when this responsibility is left unattended. Ultimately, you need to ensure you have access to, and control over, your Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business data. The misunderstanding falls between Microsoft’s perceived responsibility and the user’s actual responsibility of protection and long-term retention of their Microsoft 365 data. The backup and recoverability that Microsoft provides and what users assume they are getting are often different. Meaning, aside from the standard precautions Micrrosoft 365 has in place, you may need to re-assess the level of control you have of your data and how much access you truly have to it. As a robust and highly capable Software as a Service (SaaS) platform, Microsoft 365 fits the needs of many organizations perfectly. Microsoft 365 provides application Availability and uptime to ensure users never skip a beat, but an Microsoft 365 backup can protect you against many other security threats. 6 reasons why backing upMicrosoft 365 is critical 1. Accidental Deletion If you delete a user, whether you meant to or not, that deletion is replicated across the network, along with the deletion of their personal SharePoint site and their OneDrive data. Native recycle bins and version histories included in Microsoft 365 can only protect you from data loss in a limited way, which can turn a simple recovery from a proper backup into a big problem after Microsoft 365 has geo-redundantly deleted the data forever, or it has fallen out of the retention period. There are two types of deletions in the Microsoft 365 platform, soft delete and hard delete. An example of soft delete is emptying the Deleted Items folder. It is also referred to as “Permanently Deleted.” In this case, permanent is not completely permanent, as the item can still be found in the Recoverable Items mailbox. A hard delete is when an item is tagged to be purged from the mailbox database completely. Once this happens, it is unrecoverable, period. 2. Retention Policy Gaps and Confusion The fast pace of business in the digital age lends itself to continuously evolving policies, including retention policies that are difficult to keep up with, let alone manage. Just like hard and soft delete, Microsoft 365 has limited backup and retention policies that can only fend off situational data loss and is not intended to be an all-encompassing backup solution. Another type of recovery, a point-in-time restoration of mailbox items, is not in scope with Microsoft. In the case of a catastrophic issue, a backup solution can provide the ability to roll back to a previous point-in-time prior to this issue and saving the day. With a Microsoft 365 backup solution, there are no retention policy gaps or restore inflexibility. Short term backups or long-term archives, granular or point-in-time restores, everything is at your fingertips making data recovery fast, easy and reliable. 3. Internal Security Threats The idea of a security threat suggests hackers and viruses. However, businesses experience threats from the inside, and they are happening more often than you think. Organizations fall victim to threats posed by their very own employees, both intentionally and unintentionally. Access to files and contacts changes so quickly, it can be hard to keep an eye on those in which you’ve installed the most trust. Microsoft has no way of knowing the difference between a regular user and a terminated employee attempting to delete critical company data before they depart. In addition, some users unknowingly create serious threats by downloading infected files or accidentally leaking usernames and passwords to sites they thought they could trust. Another example is evidence tampering. Imagine an employee strategically deleting incriminating emails or files — keeping these objects out of the reach of the legal, compliance or HR departments. 4. External Security Threats Malware and viruses, like ransomware, have done serious damage to organizations across the globe. Not only is company reputation at risk, but the privacy and security of internal and customer data as well. External threats can sneak in through emails and attachments, and it isn’t always enough to educate users on what to look out for — especially when the infected messages seem so compelling. Exchange Online’s limited backup/recovery functions are inadequate to handle serious attacks. Regular backups will help ensure a separate copy of your data is uninfected and that you can recover quickly. 5. Legal and Compliance Requirements Sometimes you need to unexpectedly retrieve emails, files or other types of data amid legal action. Microsoft has built in a couple safety nets, (Litigation Hold) but again, these are not a robust backup solution capable of keeping your company out of legal trouble. For example, if you accidentally delete a user, their on-hold mailbox, personal SharePoint site and OneDrive account is also deleted. Legal requirements, compliance requirements and access regulations vary between industries and countries, but fines, penalties and legal disputes are three things you want to avoid. 6. Managing Hybrid Email Deployments and Migrations to Microsoft 365 Organizations that adopt Microsoft 365 typically need a window of time to serve as a transition window between on-premises Exchange and Microsoft 365 Exchange Online. Some even leave a small portion of their legacy system in place to have added flexibility and additional control. These hybrid email deployments are common yet pose additional management challenges. The right Microsoft 365 backup solution should be able to handle hybrid email deployments, and treat exchange data the same, making the source location irrelevant. Conclusion
In the last three years, 96% of global IT decision-makers have experienced at least one outage. The average downtime following a ransomware attack is three weeks. And according to ITIC’s 2021 Hourly Cost of Downtime survey, 91% percent of mid-sized and large enterprises say just one hour of server downtime would cost them $300,000 or more—half of whom believe it would exceed $1M. Data is the lifeblood of any business. Without a reliable and robust disaster recovery plan in place, any unexpected disruption—whether from hardware failure, natural disaster, or a cyberattack—can result in data loss, prolonged downtime, crippling financial losses, and reputational damage. Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) has emerged as one of the most effective and efficient approaches to disaster recovery in recent years. With the ability to back up all cloud data and applications in a managed data center, the pay-as-you-go cloud service model not only safeguards critical assets, but also ensures rapid restoration, minimizing the impact of disruptions on business operations. In essence, DRaaS simplifies disaster recovery, keeping your business resilient and operational in the face of adversity. Here are some steps you can take to ensure you’re harnessing your DRaaS solution’s full potential to bolster your disaster recovery strategy and protect your business: Prioritize your critical assets: Identify and prioritize your organization’s critical data, applications, and systems—and reassess regularly. Not everything requires the same level of protection. By focusing on what’s most important, you streamline your DRaaS strategy and allocate resources more effectively, ensuring the highest level of protection for your most crucial assets. Define clear RTOs and RPOs: To align your recovery efforts with your business goals and needs, clearly define your Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) based on the criticality of your assets. In doing so, you not only tailor your DRaaS solution to meet the specific recovery needs of your business, but you also ensure it is equipped to deliver the required levels of availability and data protection. Regularly test and validate: Conduct regular testing and validation of your DRaaS solution, including planned recovery drills and unexpected failover tests. By routinely putting your DRaaS plan to the test, you can proactively identify any potential weaknesses or gaps in your disaster recovery strategy and fine-tune it as needed. Incorporate automation and orchestration tools: Use automation and orchestration tools to simplify the failover and failback processes. When you automate these critical tasks, you can ensure swift response to disruptions, free of human error, to maintain business continuity. Continuously monitor and make improvements: Regularly review and improve your disaster recovery plan based on lessons learned from testing and real-world incidents. This iterative approach helps you stay proactive in identifying potential vulnerabilities and adapting your DRaaS strategy to evolving threats and business needs. Disaster recovery is a critical component of your business’s IT strategy. With a DRaaS approach that is well managed, you can solidify a resilient footing against disruptions, safeguard your critical assets, and ensure the continuity of your business operations in the face of what could otherwise be catastrophically damaging events. At ProCern, we can help you adopt a comprehensive DRaaS approach that protects your critical data and applications. With advanced expertise in Hewlett Packard Enterprises‘s backup, recovery, and ransomware protection capabilities, we’ll partner with you to ensure your business stays resilient and operational, even in the face of unexpected events. For more information, contact us here.
If the past few years have taught us anything, it is we need to be prepared for the unexpected. Security Magazine recently reported that seventy-three percent of businesses have reported experiencing a failure or outage at some point.
There are a variety of DR strategies available based on the infrastructure and assets that an organization wishes to protect. Backup and recovery methods may vary as well. Here are a six top examples of DR solutions: 1-Data Center Disaster Recovery For organizations that store their data in an on-prem data center, a data center DR strategy is essential.
March 31st marks World Backup Day. This day was created back in 2011 when a Reddit user made a comment about losing their hard drive and wishing someone had reminded them of how important it is to backup data.
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