Cyber Security

The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board takes its disaster recovery to pastures new

The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) has planted an advanced and robust IT disaster recovery (DR) systems in its Warwickshire headquarters, after appointing virtualDCS to design, implement and manage the solution. The innovative system has been named the Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery (BC/DR) Project of the Year at the 2022 Storage, Digitalisation and Cloud (SDC) Awards. The AHDB is a statutory levy board, funded by farmers, growers, and others in the food supply chain to help the industry succeed in a rapidly changing world. The organisation’s aim is to create a world-class food and farming industry in the UK. Jamie Blakeman, IT Support Manager at AHDB, explains, “When it came to procuring a new disaster recovery solution, we knew we wanted a robust DR plan, with a system that would offer minimal recovery point objectives (RPOs) and recovery time objectives (RTOs), as well as using some of the best technology available. Ultimately, being able to access our data quickly and easily, and under any circumstances, was a key requirement. “Potential suppliers were sought through G-Cloud, which is the government framework that enables the public sector to procure IT services via the Digital Marketplace. virtualDCS was selected because the company could provide a robust DR solution, with very low RPOs, through its single CloudCover service. “The new system was up and running in a matter of weeks. After the hardware racking was completed and software was installed, most of the installation and configuration was done remotely and the longest part was synchronising the data. “Our old solution was a dated product as well as being difficult and complicated to use. Now we know that data, files and systems can be quickly restored.” Kerri Milburn, Project Delivery Specialist at virtualDCS, says, “To win an award for this bespoke and innovative solution is a huge coup for everyone involved, as well as reinforcing to AHDB how robust the system is. “The challenge of protecting data has never been greater, with it held in local sites, on public clouds and SaaS solutions. This project was novel as AHDB wanted to protect backup data and provide DR for these scenarios, but they didn’t want their protection on the public cloud. “In addition, it needed to be a secure and disaster proof backup and recovery system that offered native, near-time replication, as well as being easy to use, meaning in the event of an incident, they have the freedom and autonomy to immediately invoke it themselves. “Our CloudCover solution allows them to protect and replicate their data from on-premise and Azure servers, as well as Microsoft 365. It offers full backups and near real-time failover of their systems, as well as protecting against ransomware and other cyber nasties. “By bringing top-tier applications together, we can provide fast and reliable offsite protection. The solution protects both the onsite and public cloud workloads to the DR site in question, across different locations with ease, as well as providing the desired RPOs and RTOs. This gives AHDB peace of mind that they can failover to replica virtual machines on our platform with minimal user interruption.”

Crashing markets result in record number of crypto heists

Besides a prolonged bear market, the crypto space is battling another plague of heists targeting different products in the sector. The number of crypto industry thefts has spiked, contributing to the significant loss of investor funds. In particular, according to data presented by Finbold, in 2022 the number of cryptocurrency related heists hit 190 as of 9 December, representing a growth of 43.93% from last year's figure of 132. In 2020, 50 incidents were recorded, while in 2019, the crypto sector accounted for 41 heists. Notably, the number of heists hit double digits for the first time in 2018 at 38, a record growth of over 320% from the 2017 figure of nine. The lowest number of incidents was recorded in 2011 at four. At the same time, the value lost in heists has varied over the years, with the top 10 incidents leading to an accumulative fiat value loss of $4.28 billion. The March 2022 Ronin Network (Axie Infinity) heist ranks top with $620 million stolen, followed by Poly Network at $610 million. The Binance hack of October 2022 resulted in a loss of $570 million, followed by Coincheck at $532 million. The recent FTX crypto exchange collapse ranks in the fifth spot at $477 million, while the infamous MT Gox incident occupies the sixth spot overall at $470 million. Other high-profile heists include Wormhole ($326 million), KuCoin ($281 million), PancakeBunny ($200 million), and Bitmart ($196 million). Drivers of crypto heists The report also identified some factors driving the increasing number of heists in the crypto space. It says: “Indeed, hackers are taking advantage of the cryptocurrency sector's infancy stages to initiate the heists by leveraging sophisticated techniques, such as using multiple wallets and exchanges, to obscure their tracks and make it more difficult to identify them. In this line, the anonymity and lack of regulation in the cryptocurrency market partly make it easier for hackers to operate without being detected or traced.” Overall, bad actors are likely to continue innovating means of exploiting vulnerabilities in the crypto space. However, the number of incidents will likely drop with an increased focus on the right regulatory approaches and keen consideration for security measures.

Cost of data breaches to surpass $5 per incident in 2023

Acronis has released its latest cyber threats and trends report for the second half of 2022, which found that phishing and the use of MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) fatigue attacks, an extremely effective method used in high-profile breaches, is on the rise. Conducted by the Acronis Cyber Protection Operation Centre, the report provides an in-depth analysis of the cyber threat landscape including ransomware threats, phishing, malicious websites, software vulnerabilities and a security forecast for 2023. Of note, the report found that threats from phishing and malicious emails have increased by 60%, and the average cost of a data breach is expected to reach $5 million by next year. The research team who authored the report also saw social engineering attacks jump in the last four months, accounting for 3% of all attacks. Leaked or stolen credentials, which allow attackers to easily execute cyber attacks and ransomware campaigns, were the cause of almost half of all reported breaches in the first half of 2022. “The last few months have proven to be as complex as ever - with new threats constantly emerging and malicious actors continuing to use the same proven playbook for big pay-outs,” says Candid Wüest, Acronis VP of Cyber Protection Research. “Organisations must prioritise all-encompassing solutions when looking to mitigate phishing and other hacking attempts in the new year. Attackers are constantly evolving their methods, now using common security tools against us - like MFA that many companies rely on to protect their employees and businesses.” Report highlights: threat landscape sees new challenges As security tactics and the technologies associated with them evolve, so do the threat actors trying to break into organisations and their ecosystems. The constant feed of ransomware, phishing and unpatched vulnerabilities demonstrate how crucial it is for businesses to re-evaluate their security strategies.  Ransomware continues to be the number one threat • Ransomware threats to businesses including government, healthcare, education and other sectors is generally getting worse. • Each month in the second half of this year, ransomware gangs added 200-300 new victims to their combined list. • The market of ransomware operators was dominated by 4-5 players. By the end of Q3, the total number of compromised targets published for the main operators in 2022 were as follows: LockBit - 1157 Hive - 192 BlackCat - 177 Black Basta - 89 • There were 576 publicly-mentioned ransomware compromises in Q3, a slight increase from Q2. • The overall number of ransomware incidents decreased slightly in Q3, following a summer high from July to August when Acronis observed a 49% increase in blocked ransomware attacks globally, but was then followed by a decrease of 12.9% in September and 4.1% in October. • As the main threat actors are continuing to professionalise their operations, Acronis noted a shift towards more data exfiltration with most of the large players expanding their targets to MacOS and Linux systems, and consideration of cloud environments. Phishing and malicious emails remain highly successful for threat actors • Between July and October 2022, the proportion of phishing attacks rose by 1.3 times against malware attacks reaching 76% of all email attacks (up from 58% in H1'2022). • Spam rates increased by over 15% - reaching 30.6% of all inbound traffic. • The United States led as the country with the most clients experiencing malware detections at 22.1% in October 2022, followed by Germany with 8.8% and Brazil with 7.8%. These numbers represented a small increase for the US and Germany, especially in financial trojans. • South Korea, Jordan and China ranked as the most attacked countries in terms of malware per user in Q3. • Analysing the 50 most email-borne-attacked organisations revealed the top targeted industries including: Construction  Retail  Real estate Professional Services (computers and IT)  Finance • During this period, an average 7.7% of all endpoints tried to access malicious URLs in Q3 2022, a small reduction from 8.3% in Q2 2022. Malicious actors continue to seek out and target unpatched systems • While software vendors release patches regularly or often, it is still not enough. Many attacks succeed due to unpatched vulnerabilities. • Acronis says that it continues to observe and warn both businesses and home users that new zero-day vulnerabilities and old unpatched ones are the top vector of attack to compromise systems. • Microsoft: A phishing campaign targeted Microsoft users in September by using the news coverage of the passing of Queen Elizabeth II and impersonating 'the Microsoft team' to bait recipients into adding memo text onto an online memorial board in September. Another large-scale phishing campaign was spotted targeting Microsoft M365 email service credentials, specifically at fin-tech, lending, accounting, insurance and Federal Credit Union organisations in the US, UK, New Zealand and Australia. “Increased recognition that cyber security is a growing business risk is a welcome trend across all levels of enterprises,” says Michael Suby, VP Research, Trust and Security at IDC. “The latest Acronis cyber threat report explores real-world examples from the second half of this year and offers practical recommendations to protect the people, processes, and technologies that drive modern enterprises.”

Macquarie Government partners with Fortem Australia

Macquarie Government has announced that it has signed an agreement with Fortem Australia to become an employment partner, committing the company to recruitment and career transfer opportunities for first responders throughout Australia. Founded in 2019, Fortem Australia supports the mental health and wellbeing of Australian first responders and their families. The non-for-profit organisation was co-founded by John Bale, also Co-Founder of Soldier On, a similar organisation which supports career transition opportunities for Australia’s veterans. The partnership will see Macquarie work closely with Fortem to reskill and recruit first responders into new careers, transitioning them into cyber security, cloud, and data centre security roles to support Macquarie’s federal government customers, with a specific focus on national security and defence ICT. The company will also develop and implement its own First Responder Recruitment Strategy, in partnership with Fortem, to identify opportunities for first responders within Macquarie Government. Through the partnership, Macquarie will work directly with Fortem to support training opportunities, resources, networking events and other initiatives to enable first responders looking to switch careers and join the cyber and data security sector. The agreement comes following the federal government underscoring in the budget the need for partnership with industry to tackle skills shortages in key industries. Cyber security is in need of a minimum of 17,000 new workers by 2026 according to AustCyber. Macquarie Government Managing Director Aidan Tudehope says the partnership with Fortem will help to grow Australia’s sovereign cyber and defence talent to meet the Government’s cyber security agenda. “Australia needs to considerably increase its cyber posture right across the economy. To deliver this uplift we need, as a nation, to exponentially grow the available talent pool,” says Aidan. “The nature of cyber security means we need to develop and nurture that talent through a sovereign lens - ensuring we have Australians learning and working to protect Australian data.”   “Australia’s first responders are among the best in the world. Many of them possess the analytical, investigative, problem-solving, and pattern-recognition skills necessary for success in cyber, defence technology and related industries. In many cases, they already have the essential security clearances needed to work with sensitive data. “We’re committed to continuing our goal of uplifting Australian sovereign capability in cyber security and ICT, and this important partnership with Fortem will help us in that effort.” Fortem Australia Managing Director and Co-Founder John Bale says that the partnership with Macquarie Telecom Group will help more first responder families make a smooth, supported transition into the next chapter of their careers. “We’re thrilled to welcome Macquarie to the Fortem family,” says John. “Partnering with the right companies to enable career transition for first responders and their families is central to our mission to provide specialised wellbeing and mental fitness support to first responder families. “Macquarie has long championed Australian jobs and skills development and is a leading company in an industry where there is close values alignment with and strong mutual benefits for first responders.” The partnership follows Macquarie Telecom Group recently joining VMware’s Sovereign Cloud initiative, a further reflection of the company’s commitment to sovereign IT capability.

Macquarie certified for cloud and data centre services

Macquarie Telecom Group has announced that its cloud services have been ‘Certified Strategic’ by the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) under its Hosting Certification Framework. The certification makes Macquarie the first company to have all its data centres and cloud services Certified Strategic, a key feature of the DTA’s Whole-of-Government Hosting Certification Framework. It follows the certification of Macquarie’s Data Centre portfolio last year, which includes facilities in Canberra and Sydney. The certification comes as the Australian government increases its focus on data security via policy initiatives, including the National Data Security Action Plan, the REDSPICE project, the Hardening Government IT Initiative, the Privacy Legislation Amendment, and wider plans to reform the nation’s cyber security and privacy regulations. Aidan Tudehope, Managing Director at the Macquarie Government, says stringent certification processes like the DTA’s Hosting Certification Framework help take the guesswork out of Government agencies safeguarding data. Aidan says, “As cyber attacks continue to grow in frequency and sophistication, Australia’s cyber security industry is scaling up to meet the challenge of protecting us. “The DTA is simplifying and de-risking the decision-making process on cloud, data storage and data hosting by providing agencies clear guidelines on the security credentials, capabilities, and the ownership and controls present among cloud and data centre providers. It’s a vital mechanism to bolster our nation’s cyber security posture.” Macquarie has observed a sharp rise in attempted government cyber attacks in recent months. Providing cyber security services to over 40% of the Federal Government, Macquarie protects a threat surface of over seven billion digital interactions every day. “The value of data and the attack surface area have both increased sharply, incentivising the rise in activity we’re seeing,” adds Aidan. “We’re incredibly proud to have over 200 security-cleared staff who can work with sensitive government data. This puts us on the frontline of protecting Australian government customers from unique threat patterns which are designed specifically to target them.” The DTA Certified Strategic designation follows Macquarie recently becoming a member of the VMware Sovereign Cloud initiative, which helps customers identify and engage with trusted national and regional cloud service providers to meet their unique sovereign cloud requirements. “Looking forward, as Australia continually assesses its cyber posture, data sovereignty - the jurisdictional control or legal authority that can be asserted over data due to its physical location - must remain a top priority,” says Aidan. “To secure Australian data, we need to know where it is, who can access it, and who holds authority over it, plain and simple.”

Enterprise storage trends for 2023: vendors must rise to the challenge

By Eric Herzog, Chief Marketing Officer at Infinidat Looking ahead, 2023 will be a very exciting year for enterprise storage, here are five trends we see emerging. In each case vendors will need to respond quickly with the right solutions, but do they have the right foundations in place to do so? Convergence of cyber security and storage as a cornerstone of an enterprise IT strategy CIOs and CISOs continue to increasingly realise that if they don't combine storage with cyber security, they're leaving a gap in their corporate cyber security strategy. IT leaders are accustomed to protecting the network and endpoints, deploying firewalls and looking at the application layer. However, all of their data ends up on storage. The great awakening in the enterprise market, heading into the new year, is that, if an enterprise storage solution does not have the capabilities to help combat a cyber attack, the C-suite and the IT team are leaving the organisation severely exposed. The trend emerging is for storage that is buoyed by cyber resilience to be part of the overall comprehensive cyber security strategy in every large organisation. This means vendors must offer storage solutions that align with cyber security solutions and strategies commonly used to protect enterprises, as well as cloud hosting providers, managed hosting providers and managed service providers. It will require a vendor and its partners to work closely with CIOs and CISOs, along with other IT leaders and administrators, to make cyber-resilient storage a key part of a comprehensive cyber security strategy, plugging vulnerable gaps and securing the data against cyber attacks. Boosting the ability to make a near-instantaneous recovery from a cyber attack with the highest level of trust in the data The question is not 'if' your organisation is going to be hit with a cyber attack; it’s a question of 'when' and 'how often.' Your organisation will get attacked, and it could get attacked multiple times. At that point, it’s a matter of how you respond to that attack. Cyber resilience is among the most important and highly demanded requirements of enterprises today to combat cyber attacks across the entire storage estate and data infrastructure. Even if your endpoint or your network security keeps the cyber criminals out once or twice, there will surely be times when they get through. When that happens, one of the critical things for an IT team is to get a known good copy of the data and make a speedy recovery. It's crucial to use an immutable snapshot of the data to ensure that the data has not been compromised. In other words, the data can be trusted. Finding a known good copy is done by curating the potential candidates to restore in a fenced forensic environment. The last thing you want to do is just start restoring data that has malware or ransomware infiltrated within it. Vendors will need to offer solutions that combine immutable snapshots of data, a fenced forensic environment, logical air gapping, and virtually instantaneous data recovery - ideally with a rock-solid cyber storage guaranteed SLA. Once a cyber criminal gets through an enterprise’s line of defence, it’s all about resilience and recoverability of the data, building on a known good copy of the data. A cyber resilient storage infrastructure helps you more easily identify threats with automation and put data into a safe, fenced forensic environment. The cyber attack is nullified. Harnessing the capability of anomalous pattern detection to do cyber scanning on secondary storage We’re seeing a trend emerging more broadly in 2023 around cyber scanning with the ability to do anomalous pattern detection, particularly on secondary storage. In the longer term, we see an expansion onto primary storage over the next two to three years. This cyber scanning is another tool in the storage admin’s tool bag, along with cyber resilience, to be proactively strengthening the data infrastructure to handle the ever-increasing sophistication and deceptiveness of cyber attacks. Whether for money, power or perverse entertainment, these attacks are designed to take down your business. Vendors will need to provide anomalous pattern detection capability, possibly through partnerships with backup vendors as part of a wider ecosystem. This is an evolving area of technology and it gives customers the ability to do scanning on secondary storage, adding further value for enterprise customers and partners. Growing demand for ease of deploying cyber storage, resilience, and advanced security technologies Enterprises and service providers are increasingly seeking easy-to-deploy and easy-to-use solutions that meet their needs for cyber storage resilience and integrated security technologies. They want not only automation, but also the next level up with autonomous automation. End-users don’t want complex set-ups anymore. They want to be able to quickly and efficiently access forensic environments, and when it comes to recovery of data, they expect two or three clicks, and then be done with it. Vendors will need to respond with a ‘set-it-and-forget-it’ approach to cyber storage, offering advanced technology that is also easy to deploy and use. Cyber resilience is being recognised as necessary for both primary and secondary storage as a safeguard against cyber attacks and internal threats People often think that cyber storage resilience is only about backing up data. That’s not true. Cyber storage resilience is more than backup. This is an important distinction that speaks to a trend for the next year because smart cyber criminals won’t only attack your secondary datasets, like backup, but also attack your primary datasets. In recognition of this reality, enterprises and service providers are heading into the new year injecting new levels of cyber storage resilience into both their primary and secondary storage environments. There is a shift in the enterprise market starting to happen from being reactive - waiting for the cyber criminals to attack and then doing something about it - to proactively prepare for recovery, likened to disaster recovery. Companies usually have elaborate disaster recovery plans and business continuity measures. There is a growing awareness that 'cyber disaster plans' need to be put in place with the right set of capabilities to initiate and execute rapid recovery. Vendors need to help customers rethink their approaches to cyber storage resilience, shifting approach reactive to proactive. Cyber storage resilience enables an enterprise to nullify a ransomware attack, as if the attack didn’t even happen. No ransom, no disruption and full protection against attacks.

MEEZA deploys 4.9MW data centre capacity in Qatar

Vertiv has announced that it has supported MEEZA to design, build and install its new data centres in Qatar. Vertiv was selected as MEEZA’s vendor of choice due to the company’s expertise in providing end-to-end data centre solutions that adhere to the highest industry guidelines. For the last 14 years, MEEZA has been providing a wide range of managed IT services and solutions, in addition to cloud solutions and cyber security services. According to the DataReportal Digital 2021 report, there were 4.67 million mobile connections and 2.88 million internet users in Qatar in January 2021, and the digital landscape across the country is transforming rapidly. To continue to progress its digital transformation and remain a country of choice for international hyperscalers, MEEZA required a significant increase in computing power, deployed in a short time frame. To achieve this, Vertiv helped MEEZA add 4.9MW of data centre capacity in just 14 months from design to installation, instead of about 22 months or more required for a similar capacity in a brick-and-mortar solution. MEEZA’s new M-VAULT data centres, offering cloud services to customers in Qatar, the region and the world, were built using Vertiv Integrated Modular Solutions (IMS), which provided a simple way to install capacity in a fraction of the time it would take for a traditional data centre build, due to its pre-engineered and prefabricated nature. Within the 14-month timeline, Vertiv delivered three buildings made of 100 fully equipped prefabricated modules, with the solution integrating Vertiv critical power, thermal management, and monitoring and control technologies - systems that are designed to work together. This type of modular solution also provides business agility, as it allows MEEZA to scale along with its customers. The new data centres align closely with Qatar’s digital transformation agenda as it shifts to a ‘smarter’ economy and supports the Qatar National Vision 2030 (QNV 2030), to become an advanced society capable of sustaining its development and providing a high standard of living for its people by 2030. Vertiv’s market leading solutions help customers like MEEZA achieve energy efficiency goals; and that doesn’t change when they become sub-assemblies in an integrated modular solution. For example, the Vertiv Liebert EXL S1 UPS provides MEEZA up to 99% energy efficiency in Dynamic Online mode. With its intelligent paralleling feature, the UPS can optimise efficiency at partial loads, achieving cost savings by minimising energy losses. Additionally, continuing to work with Vertiv’s IMS services to check and fine-tune system settings will help MEEZA realise energy efficiency gains throughout the equipment lifecycle. Not only did Vertiv address the tight timeline, but it also gave MEEZA access to infrastructure and domain experts, including the local partner-provided resources. Working with Vertiv meant having technical experts both on and off site, with engineers working to ensure a design and build tailored to specific business needs while technicians managed installation and integration, ensuring seamless start up and optimal operation. With the support of Vertiv’s uniquely crafted solution, pre-sales support, installation services and after-sales support, MEEZA has been able to further optimise and accelerate its go-to-market strategy. The project has also resulted in increased revenue and minimised installation risks. Fadi Nasser, Chief Commercial Officer, MEEZA says, “We constantly endeavour to offer cost-effective IT solutions and services to help our clients focus on their core business and to support their efforts to scale rapidly. Partnering with a global leader like Vertiv pushes us one step closer to our goal as we bring the best of both companies to the forefront of the Qatari market. There are massive business expansions currently occurring in the Middle East, so our business model aims to provide optimum, low cost, highly efficient and sustainable solutions that are easy to scale, if and when needed. We have been able to scale our business and become the preferred provider for wholesale internet services, major telecom operators, ISPs, government agencies, large enterprises and educational institutions across the region, and we are optimistic that with the launch of latest M-VAULT, the pace of digital acceleration in the country will skyrocket.” Pierre Havenga, Managing Director for Vertiv in the Middle East and Africa, says, “Vertiv has always been at the forefront of digital transformation, innovatively supporting our customers’ goals and we are thrilled to have completed another project for MEEZA as one of its long-term partners and vendors. The next few years will reshape the digital landscape in Qatar, and we could not be more excited to be part of this transformational journey with them. Our portfolio of power, cooling and IT infrastructure solutions and services, that extends from the cloud to the edge of the network, will greatly support MEEZA in its mission of digitally disrupting Qatar and putting it on the global map.”

LightEdge renews compliance certifications and expands coverage

LightEdge has earned compliance re-certifications for HIPAA, HITRUST, ISO 20000-1, ISO 27001, NIST, PCI DSS, SOC 1, SOC 2, and SOC 3, as well as a new certification for ISO 22301. In addition to renewing all compliance certifications for LightEdge’s legacy locations, the team extended its certifications into recently acquired data centres, including LightEdge Cavern Suites and the San Diego and Phoenix facilities formerly operated by NFINIT. All 11 LightEdge data centres are now compliant with HIPAA, ISO 27001, NIST, PCI, and SOC (SOC 1 Type 2, SOC 2 Type 2, and SOC 3). Most locations are also compliant with HITRUST, ISO 20000-1, and ISO 22301, and the team is on track to achieve certification across all facilities for those three standards in 2023. “We invest extensive time and resources into our annual compliance certification process, because we know it’s critical for our customers, many of whom operate in highly regulated industries such as healthcare and finance,” says Michael Hannan, Chief Security Officer for LightEdge. “With consistent 100% uptime, a highly redundant and secure network, and our proven security and compliance processes and expertise, we’re proud to help our clients rest easy.” LightEdge is certified in the following widely recognised standards: ● HIPAA: verifies that LightEdge’s development, security, and compliance protocols meet key regulatory requirements and industry-defined requirements for appropriate risk management. ● HITRUST: demonstrates that systems within LightEdge’s environment meet the information risk management and compliance requirements to protect data within the healthcare industry. ● ISO 20000-1: ensures all cloud hosting or IT infrastructure is managed consistently with an internationally recognised standard of excellence. ● ISO 22301: proves LightEdge’s ability to establish and maintain a business continuity management system. ● ISO 27001: empowers clients to make informed decisions about their cloud security services and ensures vendor accountability. ● NIST: shows LightEdge’s commitment to the NIST cyber security framework to properly identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover from security incidents. ● PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard): ensures that LightEdge’s data centre facilities and services meet the strict security requirements set by PCI. ● SOC 1, SOC 2, and SOC 3: demonstrates that LightEdge’s information security practices, policies, procedures, and operations meet third-party CPA standards for security, availability, and confidentiality.

Data resilience: an approach that goes beyond backup and recovery

By Florian Malecki, Executive Vice President Marketing, Arcserve What is data resilience? In a nutshell, it’s a mindset that all organisations should adopt to meet their business-continuity plans and keep their operations up and running. There are many moving parts, but overall, it’s as simple as that. The good news is that 83% of IT decision-makers are now including data resilience in their business strategies, according to a global survey by Arcserve. The bad news is that only 23% have a mature approach to data resilience. It is not enough because a solid data resilience plan is essential as organisations move to hybrid IT environments. When performance needs arise or a catastrophic failure occurs, organisations must have a well thought out and battle-tested plan for recovering their data. The reality is that data is the fuel that modern businesses run on. When companies lose access to their data, they lose the ability to go forward. Data resilience prevents this from happening. It allows every organisation to quickly recover from a data-threatening event and flourish in the digital economy. Here are three key steps to help your business develop a robust data resilience strategy: Create a plan and test it often The strength of any data resilience strategy depends on the regular testing and adjustment of all its parts. To be reactive is not good enough. You can’t wait for a disaster or attack to occur, then scramble to implement your strategy and find out if it’s good enough or not. Planning and testing are indispensable to success. Indeed, a well devised and continuously tested data resilience strategy can mean the difference between having a business and having no business. Numerous studies have shown that organisations that suffer a ransomware attack or other type of data-loss event have a lot of difficulties winning back their customers. One study showed that 88% of customers would stop using the services or products of a business they no longer trust and that 39% lose trust in a company that misuses data or suffers a data compromise - you get the idea. A data-loss event or hack of any kind can be fatal. Get executive buy in Data resilience should be the responsibility of top executives and business owners, not just the IT department. And yet data resilience is still not a priority in the C-suite of many organisations. It must be, especially with the introduction of new cyber security measures such as the NIS 2 Directive in the EU. A successful data resilience initiative starts at the top, with buy-in from C-level executives and the board of directors. When this happens, the rest of the organisation will recognise the importance of the effort, keep it top of mind and rise to the occasion when necessary. Data resilience initiatives face slow adoption in many organisations precisely because they lack champions at the top. Like any investment, a data resilience initiative needs support from the whole company, from the corner office to the cubicles, across every department. It also requires buy in from external partners and service providers. For an initiative to work, all participants must know their role in everyday operations and in the time of a disruptive event. Without buy in from all parties, there will be some who don’t perform when the chips are down. Take a multi-layered approach The key to achieving data resilience is a ‘multi-layered approach’ and deploying an infrastructure that supports all your data resilience requirements. One vital layer is doing frequent backups and creating copies that can be stored in a digital immutable vault. During this process, storage snapshots should be taken and secured in a vault. When a disaster or attack happens, and data is compromised, you have these snapshots available for instant recovery. Indeed, that’s how the Italian municipality of Palermo recovered its data after a recent cyber attack. Automation and orchestration are two other important parts of a multi-layered approach, which help streamline data recovery. These parts should include processes and automated workflows that instil consistency and minimise complexity when time is of the essence and quick thinking is required. That way, you can bring back your data fast and get back to business as usual without critical damage to your business. Another critical element of a multi-layered approach is 3-2-1-1 data protection. It means maintaining three backup copies of your data on two different media - tape and disk, with one of the copies placed off-site to enable quick recovery. Furthermore, you should have one immutable object storage copy. Immutable object storage continuously protects data by taking a snapshot at 90-second intervals. Even if disaster strikes, those data snapshots enable you to return to a recent file state. Final takeaway A good data resilience strategy does a lot for your business. It enables you to manage rapid data growth and handle various workloads, unify data recovery and quickly get back up and running after any event that compromises your data. It brings many benefits to your organisation, including enhanced performance, reduced costs, reliable and efficient business operations, minimised risk, and strong protection in every part of your company.

Microsoft joins Charter of Trust for cyber security collaboration

Microsoft has joined the Charter of Trust (CoT) cyber security initiative as of 10 November 2022. As a CoT member, Microsoft plans to contribute its cyber security expertise in developing and promoting awareness of robust security principles for a secure digital world. With the addition of Microsoft, the Charter of Trust initiative has grown to 18 members. Siemens and eight partners from the industrial sector founded this initiative in 2018 to drive advances in cyber security across industries and at a global level. “The Charter of Trust embodies the values we at Microsoft take seriously: being proactive, open, transparent, and collaborative in developing cyber security best practices and enhancing trust,” says Tom Burt, Corporate Vice President of Customer Security and Trust at Microsoft. “Industry partnership is crucial to addressing the challenges we face today, and we look forward to working with members to drive forward strategies and initiatives that strengthen cyber security.” “Cyber security is the key to building people’s confidence in digitalisation,” says Cedrik Neike, member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG and CEO of Digital Industries. “By bringing Microsoft on board, the Charter of Trust is, again, gaining considerably more weight for making our connected world more resilient and for shaping our digital future.”  Over the last four years, the Charter of Trust has already launched a wealth of measures to enhance cyber security - including the ‘Security by Default’ principle, which takes cyber security into account right from the design phase, and provides products with preconfigured security measures. In addition, the CoT partners have defined baseline requirements for their suppliers in order to further enhance cyber security throughout supply chains. The primary focus in the next phase will be on implementing a cross-industry approach to evaluate supply chain security. In this context, the growing Charter of Trust community will provide companies - mainly small and medium-sized businesses - with information, training and further resources. The CoT initiative collaborates regularly with various global authorities and scientific institutions to also drive advances in cyber security internationally and harmonise efforts across national borders and organisational boundaries. For this purpose, the CoT initiative has created the Associated Partner Forum, which has been joined by institutions such as the German Federal Office for Information Security, Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication (MIC), the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security and the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering GmbH (HPI) in Germany. At the Munich Security Conference in February 2018, Siemens and eight partners from the industrial sector signed the world’s first joint charter for greater cyber security. In addition to Siemens and the Munich Security Conference, the signatories include AES, Airbus, Allianz, Atos, Bosch, Dell Technologies, Deutsche Post DHL Group, IBM, Infineon Technologies AG, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, NTT, NXP Semiconductors, SGS, TotalEnergies, TÜV SÜD - and now Microsoft.