The Ransom Wars

Episode III: Return of the (backup) Image

Now that our backup appliance is up and running, and we know how to recover numerous backup images concurrently, one serious issue still needs to be addressed: What if the attackers have destroyed the actual backup images? Sounds like a doom-day scenario, doesn’t it, with the only way out being paying the ransom.
Yes, you might say that offline backup tapes are fully protected (true “air gapping”), and you would be correct. But if we go back to the first two episodes of this post, remember how long it takes to recover your databases from tape, test for the right image, and revive production. While this may be a safe solution, it is also an impractical one. On the other hand, although accessing backup-to-disk solutions may be much faster and easier than tapes, they might be vulnerable, and that is a significant drawback.
Is there a way to enjoy the best of both worlds? The answer is YES. Actifio has integrated its solution with two leading vendors for object storage and deduplication appliances, resulting in the Logical Air Gapping repository. This means that even if the appliance is compromised, there is practically no way the attackers can reach and destroy your backup images without physically accessing those systems. In addition, these images can be saved on up to four different external appliances (on premise and/or cloud.) What is the probability that all four will be destroyed? Not very high.
And that’s just “the main course”. The icing on the cake is Actifio’s very high performance, instant access, and dramatic cost-savings on capacity and bandwidth. Actifio also keeps incremental forever images, enabling direct access to any image kept in those OnVault repositories, whether they were created yesterday or five years ago. Brilliant!

Epilog: How do we get this done?

Datagon Systems provides end-to-end consultancy, design, and deployment services based on the Actifio platform and combined with the most suitable third-party products. For the resilience of your data.