The Active Archive Alliance, of which Atempo is a long-standing member, has just sponsored a White Paper highlighting the importance of active archiving in defending organizations against ransomware attacks.
Written and published by the Data Center Intelligence Group (DCIG) and entitled, "Mitigating Ransomware through Active Archive Solutions" argues that active archiving: a scalable storage architecture that intelligently manages digital data assets can effectively protect these assets against ransomware attacks, accidental data loss and corruption.
“Hackers often attack industries with high-value data like healthcare, utility infrastructures, finance, and media and entertainment. These organizations often pay to recover their data,” said Rich Gadomski, Co-Chair of the Active Archive Alliance.
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DCIG White Paper Highlights
The DCIG notes that active archiving solutions offer permanent and long-term protection for archived data against malicious intrusion as well as accidental data loss or corruption. The report highlights numerous ways that active archive solutions can provide ransomware mitigation, including:
- Protecting archive data from modification. WORM (write once, read many) and retention management features keep archived data safe from malicious encryption or overwrite.
- Replicating archived data and securing offline storage. Active archive solutions secure archived data through offline storage, providing an air gap defense that removes the data from the network where it cannot be attacked.
- Replicating data to a secure cloud. Data remains online in a secure cloud, protecting it with security features like Secure Socket Layers (SSL) encryption and multi-factor user authentication.
- Supporting 3-2-1 data archiving. The 3-2-1 backup/archiving model maintains three data copies stored on two different storage types, such as a disk-based backup system, a secure cloud platform, and online or offline tape.
- Enabling rapid recovery. The more data sets on primary storage, the greater the opportunity for hackers. Active archiving minimizes attack opportunities in primary storage by identifying and moving inactive files to secure cloud and offline archives. This speeds up recovery and reduces business impact.
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Ransomware Statistics in 2021
Here are just 3 stand-out stats from the DCIG White Paper:
- 600% - Increase in malicious emails since the arrival of Covid-19
- $170,404 - Average mid-sized corporation ransom payout
- 35% - Encrypted data not recovered after ransom paid
What do these statistics tell us? That anti-ransomware software should not be the sole weapon used against the attackers. Secure offline data archives are often the last line of defense. Especially when we know that paying the ransom is no guarantee to getting data back.
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ATEMPO's MIRIA FOR ARCHIVING Platform
Atempo's Miria Data Management platform contains some advanced archiving features including:
- Vendor-agnostic storages: seamless integration with all storage infrastructures
- Multi-storage destinations: full support for disk, tape, object, cloud, NAS...
- Flexibility: many ways to activate archiving - automatic, manual, drag & drop
- Versatility: a combination of active and deep archiving to enable restores at optimum speeds
- Data security and integrity: Miria guarantees data security and data availability in both the short and the long term
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