In an ever-changing technological world, businesses are on the front line in a constant battle against cyber threats; ransomware is one of the most aggressive attack types. Ransomware attacks have been on a sharp rise, and the techniques are evolving into something powerful. This can be catastrophic for businesses, leading to financial losses or damage to their reputation that they may never be able to recover.
Among the strategies that protect critical data against ransomware, immutability storage solutions are among the best choices. With this higher-level tech, no one can alter or delete the plan, and hackers if data is written in any person’s way. This article discusses the importance of immutable storage as a ransomware shield.
The Growing Ransomware Threat
Almost every industry is vulnerable, and ransomware attacks will cost businesses more than $20 billion per year by 2025. Healthcare, finance, and government are regular targets, as these industries often release sensitive information. But no industry is immune. Attackers who manage to find backdoors in IT infrastructure also often get a hold of backups, the only thing that can save anyone from ransomware.
Direct-attached storage (DAS) and dedupe appliances may not provide the same cutting-edge security features necessary to secure data in today’s threat climate. As they are directly integrated with the backup software, these systems cannot be protected from ransomware when the primary system is infected. This applies to using a storage solution that includes immutable properties.
What Is Immutable Storage?
As the name implies, immutable storage writes data once to a location that cannot be modified or deleted for some duration. This is how your data can be there intact, and the hackers do not get anything because even if they retrieve access to your systems.
Immutable storage solutions like Object First Ootbi (Out of the Box Immutability) create a copy of your backup data in which any changes are not retained, meaning ransomware cannot impact it. Veeam (the market leader in data backups) also sees the wisdom of adopting immutable storage as part of a best practice for protecting customer data. That is why they fully support S3 Object lock technology, which makes all backup copies immune to deletion.
Why Immutable Storage is Essential
Here’s why immutable storage is essential:
- Ransomware Resilience. Immutable storage ensures your backups cannot be encrypted or deleted by ransomware. Since attackers can breach your network, you still have original copies that can never be changed but are always there for clean data.
- Compliance: For businesses in highly regulated industries such as health care and finance, having immutable storage is invaluable since regulations are set to protect data over a period of time. This ensures that businesses maintain unmodifiable copies of critical data and thus comply with regulations in their respective industries.
- Ransomware Recovery: Immutable backups help businesses quickly recover from ransomware attacks and get back up without paying a ransom. This drastically cuts downtime, monetary loss, and reputation damage.
Veeam and Immutable Storage: A Powerful Partnership
Veeam is a significant player in the data management software business (well-known for its high-performance backup and recovery solutions). However, with the introduction of the Veeam hardened Linux repository, Veeam will be stratospherically good at providing secure online storage. Veeam is releasing the newest product’s fully integrated S3 Object Lock support.
If your business is a Veeam shop, selecting storage systems that mesh seamlessly with its backup and recovery technology will be vital to ensuring success. Legacy solutions, such as DAS or Deduplication appliances, may offer these owing to antiquated monolithic architecture, but modern business-necessitating security cannot rely on them being considered an acceptable ROI.
The Limitations of Legacy Storage Solutions
Here are the limitations of legacy storage solutions:
- Direct-Attached Storage (DAS)
DAS has been a traditional storage solution for many years. It offers simple file—and block-based storage that is easy to deploy. Ransomware that hits the primary system can also access and change Backup data because DAS treats it as if it’s directly attached to the backup server.
- Deduplication Appliances
Deduplication appliances often store data forever, but that route needs to be revised with issues. Because of their reliance on deduplication, they may suffer from slow recovery times due to the rehydration process, making Veeam Instant Recovery challenging. Deduplication appliances can additionally complicate encryption choices or expose raw backup data; thus, when there is a breach, the risk of compromise extends to its elevated levels.
- Hardened Linux Repositories
Enter Hardened Linux Repositories (HLR). They allow the deployment of a more secure environment but will require expertise in security and Linux. Companies with broader adoption, like mid-size businesses without a dedicated IT security workforce, might find configuring and maintaining HLRs to security standards time-consuming and difficult. This makes it a less than desirable solution for most Veeam customers who need to balance security, simplicity, and guaranteed higher performance.
Why Ootbi is the Best Storage for Veeam
Businesses require a purpose-built storage solution for Veeam that can help overcome these challenges. Ootbi from Object First does it precisely this way. Security, simplicity, and performance were at the core of Ootbi. Here are three reasons why Ootbi is the perfect storage for Veeam.
- Ootbi (Out-of-the-Box Immutability): The S3 Object Lock feature at the bucket level makes objects backed up to these buckets immutable, preventing tampering or deletion within Oryx. It is integrated with Veeam’s “direct-to-object” function, making it compatible with all Veeam Data Platform v12 use cases, ensuring ransomware cannot alter or delete backup data, and providing added business assurance.
- Deploy-Anywhere: Deploying tthe zero-trust architecture requires no security expertise. It deploys rapidly in 15 minutes and scales up or down with the business of organizations that need quick, dependable backup storage without the headaches associated with legacy systems.
- High Performance: Ootbi offers rapid backup and restore times with read speeds of up to 4.0GB/s, improving the speed of Veeam Instant Recovery. It works fast during recovery, preventing business downtime by bringing files online immediately after attack lines are killed, ensuring immediate access to necessary files.
Conclusion
Immutable storage is more critical now than ever in an increasingly destructive ransomware threat landscape. Solutions such as Ootbi ensure that backup data cannot be modified or deleted, making them a vital tool against ransomware attacks. With top-of-the-line backup and recovery abilities, businesses can safeguard your data, meet regulatory demands, and get you back online in the event of a disaster.
Immutable storage is quickly moving beyond an option and will soon be table stakes for any business serious about securing its data.