Is Data Immutability the Most Powerful Approach to Ransomware Protection?

The threat of ransomware is evolving, not only in growth but also sophistication.

Cybercriminals are becoming increasingly clever and changing their tactics to leverage current conditions and compel quick action. This type of behavior has taught us that we need to be more vigilant in preparing for the inevitable event of an insidious attack.

Having a multi-layer approach with good prevention and detection capabilities are two foundational elements of keeping your data safe. But it doesn’t stop there. With an attack happening on average every 11 seconds, and organizations facing downtime of up to 16 days, it’s more a question of “when” not “if.” According to the recently published 2022 State of Ransomware Preparedness Report, roughly 52% of ransomware victims suffered data loss on some level and nearly 63% of victims suffered an operational disruption. What’s even more eye-opening is that only 35% of respondents believe their current backup and recovery tools are sufficient to meet the needs of their organizations.

To complete your ransomware protection strategy, you need ransomware recovery capabilities that allow you to successfully respond to, mitigate and recover from an inevitable cyber-attack. But that’s easier said than done, and questions remain such as:

Is data immutability the most powerful approach to ransomware protection?

Is “recovery” more important than “backup”?

What happens when “lightning strikes” or things go sideways because of human error?

What if my data lives on-prem and in the cloud?

In a recently held webinar titled “A Practical Guide to Ransomware: Recovery with HYCU and Wasabi”, Drew Schlussel, Sr. Director, Product Marketing at Wasabi, and Marko Ljubanovic, Director, Global Systems Engineering at HYCU answer these questions. Additionally, they discussed how an air-gapped and immutable recovery solution designed specifically for ransomware recovery can give your organization the peace of mind that it can get back to business cleanly, quickly, and easily.

“What if you fail to protect yourself against yourself? In more cases than not, the actual loss of data comes from human error and your oversight to expire something. Which is funny, but unfortunately true,” says Marko Ljubanovic.

“Immutability is the protection against yourself. It is a method for locking objects such that they cannot be modified and/or deleted until a specific time that you as the user have set,” emphasized Drew Schlussel. “For instance, if you want to lock up a set of documents that are under regulatory compliance control and want to lock them away for 1 year, 3 years, etc., you set the timer, put them into an immutable object system and you cannot delete them, HYCU cannot delete them, and Wasabi cannot delete them. And that is a very powerful feature.”

“Backup is complex, recovery is complex. You need a SaaS-based solution that is secure and simple at the core."

Both Ljubanovic and Schlussel agree that having an immutable and air-gapped recovery solution is the most important layer in ransomware protection.

“Ransomware attackers/hackers are brilliant in one sense but lazy in another. They are going to go after the easiest, most commonly exposed vulnerabilities. Why work hard to make your money when you can go after the most commonly unpatched elements of the operating systems and just rack it in? That is why immutability is so important,” added Schlussel.

“Backup is complex, recovery is complex. You need a SaaS-based solution that is secure and simple at the core,” says Ljubanovic. “Whether it lives on-prem or in the cloud, customers own their data. By using HYCU’s data protection solutions with Wasabi’s immutable cloud storage, we can help our “mutual” customers secure backups and mitigate ransomware threats.”

Ljubanovic concluded by saying “without an immutable and air-gapped solution, any data protection strategy is at risk. The 2022 State of Ransomware Preparedness Report also notes that only 41% of survey respondents air gap their backups.

To achieve backup security and backup integrity, make sure whatever solution you choose has these 3-key features:

1.     Unreadable backup data

2.     Dedicated storage, network credentials

3.     WORM capability, native Wasabi support

As the cost of data loss, downtime and ransoms continue to rise, the stakes have never been greater to get ransomware protection. Is your company prepared to withstand the dangerous pitfalls of a ransomware attack? Do you have the resources in place to backup, protect and recover your data before and after an attack?

If you still have questions, we invite you to watch the webinar “A Practical Guide to Ransomware: Recovery with HYCU and Wasabi”, and discover how organizations can improve their ransomware protection strategy.

Stay tuned for part 2 in this 4-part blog series where we will look at how to leverage object lock to mitigate against ransomware attacks.

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