How we’re leapfrogging the cyber criminals

Let data proliferate and enjoy carefree innovation with Hitachi Vantara and Veeam by your side

75% of organizations had at least one ransomware attack in the past 12 months¹. And of the other 25%, there’s a real risk some of them just aren’t aware an attack is or has taken place.

But, as data continues to grow in volume and complexity, there’s no time for putting your head in the sand. Maintaining control over your environment is crucial, and data resilience that can cope with today’s threats must extend far beyond the assumed backup and recovery tools and processes we’re used to. With cyberattacks more frequent and sophisticated, “fail forward” – the ability to continue utilizing critical data even in the face of adverse situations – is crucial.

But this takes a multilayered approach that spans hardware, software, and insights. And the strongest solutions come from combined effort: this is why we formed a strategic global alliance with Veeam – a leader in data protection and ransomware recovery – to deliver the advanced data resiliency our customers need to keep moving freely and keep their hybrid cloud environments safe.

Whether it’s ransomware attacks that cripple critical services or data breaches that expose sensitive information, the threat landscape is constantly evolving, and the consequences can be devastating.

A modern data resilience strategy ensures that your data remains secure, accessible, and usable—even in the event of a cyberattack, system failure or natural disaster—by encompassing three key elements.

• Cybersecurity: to prevent unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction of data.
• Zero trust principles: based on the principle that companies should not trust anyone by default and should verify every request for access.
• Zero trust data resilience: reliably and quickly recover clean data from any outage – man-made or natural. When zero trust is applied to the data protection environment, it is referred to as zero trust data resilience.

Building a strong foundation in cybersecurity

A common mistake we see organizations making is over-dependance on tools and technology. Effective cybersecurity requires a multi-layered approach involving a combination of technologies, processes, and best practices. These include but are not limited to, strong passwords and multi-factor authentication, vulnerability management to regularly identify and remediate software and infrastructure vulnerabilities, a robust network perimeter, and of course antivirus and anti-malware software together with employee education.

Zero trust principles

There are several principles that make up zero trust strategy. These include:

• Least-privilege access: access is restricted to what is essential at the right time.
• Verify explicitly: this principle focuses on always authenticating and authorizing based on all available data points.
• Assume breach: under the assumption that breaches will happen, zero trust prioritizes detection, response, and rapid recovery to minimize the impact of security breaches and the subsequent blast radius.

Zero trust data resilience

The core principles of zero trust data resilience extend the zero trust principles, and are key elements in protecting your organizations data, with:

• Immutable and encrypted backup storage: backup data cannot be modified or deleted
• Separation of backup software and backup storage: minimizing the attack surface and blast radius
• Multiple resilience zones: 3-2-1 backup rule

Diving into immutable and encrypted backup storage

Immutable backup storage refers to any form of data storage that prevents the alteration, deletion, or unauthorized access of backup data, with a strict read-only policy that makes the stored data immutable. The benefits are vast, including:

1. Protection against accidental or intentional data deletion or change. Mitigating the risk of human error, malware attacks, or system failures.
2. Backup data is made tamper-proof, supporting compliance, regulatory audits, and more.
3. Prevents exfiltrated data from being used by criminals to demand an alternative ransom by encrypting all backup data.

Together, Hitachi Vantara and Veeam provide a comprehensive data protection solution for your critical production workloads and data, addressing several pain points in cyber resilience:

1. Implementation: our integrated solutions simplify deployment and streamline your security infrastructure.
2. Cost: reduce costs by eliminating the need for multiple vendors with an already-integrated solution – no compromises
3. Evolving threats: Veeam’s advanced features, such as ransomware detection and rapid recovery, with Hitachi Vantara’s storage solutions, help organizations stay leaps ahead
4. Data management: enhance data management with features like immutable storage and storage snapshots, ensuring data integrity and quick recovery in case of an attack
5. Incident response: Veeam’s rapid recovery capabilities and Hitachi Vantara’s reliable storage means organizations can develop more effective incident response plans, minimizing downtime and data loss

To learn more about the double threat defences of Hitachi Vantara and Veeam, listen to our webinar where we talk in more detail here or read our solution overview.

Source: ¹ Veeam Data Protection Trends 2024 report