Roadmap to effective cyber security

A flurry of new threats, technologies and business models have emerged in the cybersecurity space as the world shifted to a remote work model in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Bad actors have taken advantage of the complexity introduced by newly remote workforces to falsely impersonate legitimate users through credential theft and have upped the ante by targeting customers in the victim’s supply chain. The ability to monetize ransomware attacks by threatening to publicly leak victim data has made it more lucrative. The impact of cyber intrusions on any organization can be crippling.

We’ve gathered a list of key elements for a robust cyber security strategy, including education, policies and procedures to help limit the risk of intrusion and avoid the costliest ramifications. We’re proud to partner with Zadara to offer their fully managed back-up and recovery services for reliable data protection.

The Cost Of Cyber Security

• Ransomware attacks are estimated to cost $6 trillion annually by 2021.
• The average cost of a malware attack on a company is $2.4 million.
• The average cost in time of a malware attack is 50 days.
• The most expensive component of a cyber attack is information loss, which represents 43% of costs

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Cyber Security Risks

• 92% of malware is delivered by email.
• The root causes of data breaches for small businesses broke out as following:
  • Negligent employee or contractor 48%
  • Third party mistakes 41%
  • External (hacker) attacks 27%
• 43% of data breaches involved small businesses.
• 29.6% of companies will experience a data breach in the next two years.
• 21% of all files are not protected in any way.
• 3 out of 4 small businesses say they don’t have sufficient personnel to address IT security.

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A roadmap for cyber security

So how do you protect your organization against these types of attacks? Education, effective data isolation “Air Gap” procedures, monitoring/testing/upgrading and, of course, backup and recovery methods provide a comprehensive list of cyber security strategies for both large and small businesses.

Employee Education Is the First Step 

Begin with employee education. In most cases, organizations are affected when a well-intentioned user clicks on a malicious link that they shouldn’t have, introducing malware into the network. Effective employee training is necessary to prevent this common malware intrusion methodology.

Data Isolation - Air Gap Protection 

An Air Gap implies isolation of critical operational areas of an organization’s data system, such as accounting, from day-to-day operations and user shares, as well as test and dev. If one system becomes infected, the other has an Air Gap to prevent further contamination.

Zadara provides Air Gaps in many ways: 

• Network Isolation
• Virtual Private Storage Arrays
• Server Records
• Out-of-band Management Network

Monitoring, Testing, Upgrading

Continuous monitoring, testing and upgrading of your systems ensures early visibility of intrusions or vulnerabilities. This service is included as part of Zadara’s Operation Policy to provide Storage-as-a-Service, headed by a group of professionals dedicated to protecting your data.

Continuous system testing is critical. Part of Zadara’s SOC2 process is to routinely use PEN Testing on cloud deployments. This ensures there are no open doors or exploits that can enable unauthorized entry.

Keeping systems current is the next key element. Bug fixes and security patches must be applied, otherwise protective measures become obsolete and easily exploited. Zadara’s VPSAs were designed with upgradeability in mind.

Backup and Recovery

One of the most essential elements of an effective cyber security regime is to have backup and recovery plans in place. While this appears to be an obvious practice, often it is incorrectly implemented in the case of ransomware. Most backups are implemented as 2-1-1 or two copies, one media type and one location. Better still is a 3-2-1 backup strategy (3 copies, 2 media types, 1 media location, 1 air-gapped copy).

Adopt a more effective approach to data storage and management

Basic protection plans with data backups are not enough these days. Continuous monitoring of the IT infrastructure should focus not only on potential hardware or software failures, but also on detecting threats and intrusions both from outside and from within the customer’s organization.

Fully-Managed Backup and Protection

The Zadara approach offers two key advantages to successfully stay ahead of the criminals. First, Zadara gives IT managers and administrators a highly affordable, 100%-OpEx solution that is both technically sophisticated and simple to administer. Second, and just as important, Zadara’s team of data storage and management experts is available 24/7, to monitor and respond to threats to your data.

Move to The Next Level of Data Security

Zadara’s Storage-as-a-service (STaaS) advantage offers enterprise-class data protection as a practical reality for companies and government agencies of all types and sizes.

Learn more how hybrid cloud storage prevents ransomware attacks. Don’t wait until it’s too late, we can help enhance your cyber security.

Contact us today to learn how Zadara and Velocity Tech Solutions can help.