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Ransomware: How it Works and How to remove it

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In the last couple of years, there has been an increase in ransomware attacks resulting in severe crippling of businesses and, in some cases, the collapse of businesses. Picture this: About 37% of small companies that were hit by ransomware had fewer than 100 employees. Ransomware attacks are designed such that they can lay dormant on your system/device until the device is at its most vulnerable and only then executes an attack. Let’s learn a bit more about them and what are the causes of ransomware infection. What Is Ransomware and Causes of Ransomware Infection? In simple words, ransomware is malware that encrypts the victim’s information and then holds that information at ransom. When hackers inject malware code into a device, the data on the device gets encrypted and deny access to the original owner of the data. To gain access back and decrypt the data, the hackers demand ransom and thus the word ransomware. What are the causes of Ransomware Infection and Ransomware Statistics While there are several causes of ransomware infection, the most common and the most effective is a ‘Phishing emails attack,’ at 54%. Phishing email attacks are among the most common ways hackers install ransomware on your device. There are various types of phishing attacks, like whaling, vishing, and smishing. While they are meant for different devices – the interconnected systems can spread the infection from one device to another. The other causes of ransomware infections include: Ransomware Attack Examples Some of the prominent ransomware attack examples include: Ransomware Distribution Techniques Ransomware usually gets installed on your device discretely when you click a link or download an attachment with malicious code designed to get secretly installed into a device. There are several ways the bad actors distribute ransomware, including prominent ones. How ransomware works? A ransomware attack starts when a malware code in your device encrypts your data. As mentioned earlier, a malicious ransomware code can lay dormant on your device, and you will not know about it till it starts encrypting your data and denying access to the critical data. And once your device is infected with ransomware, it proceeds in seven stages. Ransomware Protection Prevention is always better than cure – the saying is true when it comes to protecting your organization. Here are six ways to protect your organization from ransomware. Steps to Ransomware Removal Detected a ransomware infection in your network? Follow these five steps to mitigate an active ransomware infection: The Business Impact of Ransomware When we talk about the business impact of ransomware, its financial impact is one aspect. So, what are the impacts of ransomware on a business? There are five ways a ransomware infection sabotages your business. Ace Data’s Data Protection Solutions Ransomware attacks are on the rise, and they are here to stay. With each attack becoming more sophisticated, it is up to organizations to protect and secure their data. Ace Data, with its comprehensive cybersecurity solutions, protect your data wherever your data resides – in the cloud or hybrid environment or on the premises. With a vision and mission to empower our clients’ data lifecycle through end-to-end services and robust cloud delivery models and to deliver complete peace of mind to every customer, Ace Data offers data protection solutions like cloud backup solutions, managed backup services, Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service, Archival-as-a-Service, and Backup & Data Assessment.

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Why is Enterprise Data Protection Important for Business in 2024?

Leave a Comment / All, Data Protection / acedata@admin

Data protection and data security have become prime concerns of SMBs and healthcare organizations in the recent past. With attackers becoming more sophisticated and targeted in their ransomware attacks, it is not surprising for SMBs to become conscious about their data protection. Did you know a recent ransomware report released by Datto on 17th January 2023 revealed that SMBs are aware of rising cyber threats and have to allocate resources and invest in cloud and network security? Here are some of the stats from the report. #Foodforthought: These are some big numbers to Not pay attention to. It flows into the periphery of an organization considering an updated, upgraded, and robust data security plan of action. With all these stats, it is imperative for SMBs to think about their data security, data protection, and, above all, their data privacy. Simultaneously, it is important to understand the difference between the three and how they all come together to ensure your data is safe and secure. Enterprise Data Protection – Definition And Its Relevance in 2024 If we talk about the definition of EDP- It is the process of delivering, managing, and monitoring security across all data repositories and objects within an organization. Enterprise data protection is an inclusive term that includes various policies, tools, frameworks, and techniques ensuring your data safety respective of its storage and consumption within an organization. Enterprise Data protection is crucial for businesses for several reasons. The increased reliance on digital data and technology has increased the need for enterprise data protection. Considering the growing frequency of cyberattacks, it has become essential for SMBs to take proactive measures to amp their data protection, data security, and data privacy strategies. Key components of an effective enterprise data protection strategy Threats to Enterprise Data in 2024 In 2024, the threats to enterprise data are bound to become more targeted and sophisticated, and organizations must guard against them. So, how do you define enterprise data threats? Simply put, Enterprise Data threats imply all the potential harm that could be caused to an enterprise’s data or systems due to security breaches, cyberattacks, or other malicious activities and subsequent data losses. Some common enterprise data threats include – While all these are common threats to enterprise data, risks of data breaches and cyberattacks have increased. Risks of Data Breaches and Cyber Attacks Ransomware attacks are the biggest and the most common threat to enterprise data, but that’s not all. Data loss is a huge impact on an organization and the onus of protecting sensitive data increases with each attack. Ransomware attacks can be identified by keeping an eye on the following activities 2. Impacts of data loss on businesses: The impact of Data breaches and cyberattacks on businesses is quite significant. 3. Importance of protecting sensitive data: Confidential information like personal information, financial information, and trade secrets are your sensitive data that needs protection and security. So, data protection is critical to the data security and privacy of individuals and the business’s success. Let’s look at the impact of enterprise data protection on businesses in 2024 and how businesses should protect their enterprise data from ransomware attacks. Why Is Enterprise Data Protection Important for Businesses in 2024? Enterprise Data Protection is crucial for businesses in 2024 for several reasons: Final Words Enterprise Data protection is a crucial aspect of modern business operations and is essential for protecting sensitive data, maintaining a business’s reputation, and supporting overall business goals. Rather than scrambling for solutions at the 11th hour, it is better to evaluate the current security systems and invest resources to make EDP a part of the growth of your organization. To know more about how we can help you battle your woes, please feel free to reach out to us at info@ace-data.com today!

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How to Protect Your Database with Virtual Vault?

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Introduction The data that you collect and accumulate is more precious than gold and as a business owner, it is your responsibility to protect it. But how do you do that? There are various ways to do that, like cloud backup solutions. One of the solutions that work with cloud backup is the virtual vault. What is Virtual Vault? Virtual Vault is a cloud-based data backup solution that lets users securely store their data files on a server in the cloud. Offering unlimited storage space, virtual vaults are fast and easy to use. They can be used with any device like a desktop, laptop, or tablet – making it easier for the user to access their files from anywhere. Let’s look at the advantages of using a virtual vault for your business. Benefits of Using Virtual Vaults Some of the essential benefits of using a virtual vault include – These are generic benefits of using virtual vaults, and with AceData Virtual Vault, you can do much more. When talking about the features of virtual vaults, it is crucial to remember that a virtual vault must include these characteristics. Important features of Virtual Vault include: Features of Virtual Vaults What Are Ace Data Virtual Vaults, and How Do They Help To Protect Your Database? You have a fair idea about what are virtual vaults, but do you know what Ace Data Virtual Vault can do for your business? With Ace Data Virtual Vault – an enterprise cloud backup and recovery solution – organizations can achieve seamless business continuity and disaster recovery with cloud backup. Virtual Vault is more reliable, cost-effective, and packs plenty of other benefits, enabling businesses with modern infrastructure for today and tomorrow. But before we tell you more about our virtual vault, let’s look at cloud backup and recovery. Cloud Backup and Recovery – All You Need To Know In simple words, cloud backup can be understood as a service or a strategy wherein your data and applications are backed up and stored data and applications from a primary server of a business to a remote server or a secondary server. Why is it necessary? With cloud backup services, businesses can quickly recover and restore their data stored on the remote server. This ensures minimal disruptions to your operations and offers optimum continuity. These remote servers are usually hosted by third-party service providers. While quick recovery is one of the significant reasons for businesses opting for cloud backup, the other reason is to keep the critical files and data readily available in the wake of any mishap. Mishaps like an outage, natural disasters, or even system failures. How Does It Work? The working mechanism of cloud backup operates on copying the data from your server and storing the copied data onto a remote server. Depending on the preferences and the criticality of data, applications, and files, businesses can opt to back either some or full data onto a remote server. How is Cloud Backup Done? Usually, a cloud backup is done through a web browser or a control panel offered by a service provider. Cloud backup solutions have become necessary for numerous organizations in the present scenario, considering the data breaches and natural disasters that have recently plagued the world. Customers generally go for cloud backup services as they store most or all of their business-critical apps and data on cloud servers. Why To Use Cloud Backup Service? With Cloud Backup services, small businesses can – But this is not all, and here are some more reasons why you must go for cloud backup services for data backup and storage requirements. Ace Data Cloud Backup Solutions – Virtual Vault Ace Data Cloud Backup Solution – Virtual Vault – which is an enterprise cloud backup and recovery solution – is an excellent way to ensure your files are always backed up. With Virtual Vault (Cloud Backup & Recovery Solution), you can enable Continuous Data Protection on specific folders or even just one folder, depending on what you need for safety purposes. The frequency of data backup depends entirely on how often certain types of changes happen. Changes like newly created documents versus other modifications made over time, photos being added periodically rather than captured continually every day by an automatic system. This is only a glimpse of what Ace Data Virtual Vault (Cloud Backup & Recovery Solution) can do for your business. Virtual Vault offers the long-term storage of non-critical backup data. Like everything else, your business also needs a plan B to succeed, and Ace Data’s Virtual Vault is that plan B for your business. When planning to upscale your business operations, the fear of losing your data can wreak havoc on your inner peace. So, how do you keep the worries at bay and still upscale your business operations? By securing all your data, starting immediately. How Does Ace Data Help? Ace Data Virtual Vault (Cloud Backup & Recovery Solution) offers a complete enterprise cloud backup solution that is easily deployable on-premises and is equally compatible with hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Further, when you take cloud backup-as-a-Service, it empowers your organization with a greater visibility into your data; and uses those data insights to take appropriate actions. Additionally, you get real-time control to remediate threats along with compliance reporting. In a nutshell – you have a safe space to store your data without worrying about its security. Ace Data Virtual Vault offers your business the following benefits: These are a few benefits of using Ace Data Virtual Vault. With our single-code approach, we deliver multiple applications that are compatible with different environments. So, whether you want to have a data backup or storage, our single-code-based architecture is an ideal choice to cater to, as it is your data, and it should move along with you. Final words Data backup, storage, and recovery have become necessary in the present world, as the risk of breaches, calamities, and outages is rising. Don’t let your business suffer because of

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Data Loss Prevention (DLP): A Complete Guide

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Data loss prevention (DLP) – also known as data leak prevention, extrusion prevention, and information loss prevention – is a stack of strategies, products, techniques, and technologies to prevent unauthorized users from accessing or misusing critical information. It also makes sure the workforce doesn’t send confidential data beyond corporate boundaries. DLP : Data Loss Prevention Data Loss Prevention (DLP) software classifies confidential, regulated, and business-critical information and recognizes policy breaches specified by the organizations or within a preset policy package, usually backed by regulatory adherence, including PCI-DSS, HIPAA, or GDPR. After identifying those breaches, DLP enforces recovery with encryption, alerts, and other preventive measures to prevent end-users from maliciously or accidentally sharing information that can put the business at risk. The adoption of Data Loss Prevention is scaling up. As per a report, by 2021, 90% of businesses will have employed at least one sort of integrated DLP – up from 50% in 2017. Data Leak Causes Let’s look at some of the most common data leak causes: Device Theft or loss Remote work and the ‘Bring Your own Device (BYOD) models have been useful to businesses – especially amidst the COVID-19 pandemic – about upfront expenses and efficiency. But, they can also pose security risks. Employees commuting or working between various locations are more likely to misplace or lose their devices. Malware Attacks Often, cybercriminals kick off malware attacks to fulfill their vindictive goals. Some of the most prevalent ones include RAM scraping, in which the memory of the targeted devices is inspected for gathering critical data. In addition, some malware attacks install tools, such as keystroke logging, to collect keystrokes for stealing passwords or other confidential data. Social Engineering About 25% of data infringements are carried out by utilizing social engineering. Often, cybercriminals act as if they belong to a particular business or organization and later grab confidential details from undoubting users. Also, the fraudsters use WhatsApp messages, phone calls, and even SMS to deceive relevant stakeholders. Weak Credentials 8 out of 10 data infringements occur due to weak or stolen credentials. Passwords that are easily cracked, such as personal details (your pet’s name), or used across numerous websites, will put your data at stake. Outdated Software Out-of-date software makes cybercrime simple for any hacker. Without routine software updates and the latest security patch installs, your devices, and systems won’t maintain the guard they need to block malicious intrusions. How Does Data Loss Prevention (DLP)Work? Data Loss Prevention relies on several technologies (broadly split into two categories, i.e., integrated DLP and Enterprise DLP). The policy violations can be activated through different content analysis techniques. Rule-based/regular expressions is one of the most common analysis techniques, considered as a first-pass filter. It involves content analysis by the engine for specific rules like 16-digital credit card numbers. Database fingerprinting or Exact Data Matching involves looking at exact matches from a live database or database dump. Statistical analysis uses machine learning and other methods to trigger policy violations. Conceptual/lexicon can alert on unstructured ideas using a combination of dictionaries, rules, and more. There are many different techniques now that are effective for different types of inspection, right from pre-built categories to partial document matching. Therefore, when choosing a Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solution provider, it’s essential to consider, among other factors, the type of techniques they employ, the technologies they use, and whether they have their own content engines or rely on third-party solutions. How to Prevent Data Loss? As data leaks can be quite costly, it’s crucial to invest resources in ensuring they don’t happen. Here are some ways to help you prevent data loss and secure your business from cybercrime: Encrypt Data Leaks End-to-end encryption levels up data protection no matter if the data is in a cloud (public or private), on-site, or in transit. Data encryption provides confidentiality and drives vital security processes, including authorization, authentication, non-repudiation, and integrity. Data Backup One of the strongest defenses in Data Loss Prevention is data backup,especially for ransomware attacks. Devise a data backup plan that can safeguard your business by helping recover the data that has been lost or corrupted. Make sure you have solid backups and offline backups too. For help, consider contacting the third party for managed backup services. Secure all Endpoints Now, with several businesses adopting the remote work model, endpoints have become scattered (at times even internationally), making them tougher to safeguard. Virtual private networks (VPN) and firewalls offer a foundation layer of endpoint security, but they aren’t enough. Often, employees get tricked into introducing malware into an environment to evade these security walls. So, do a thorough audit and develop defined ways to secure all endpoints. Impose Access Control Your business’s critical data can currently be accessed by users who don’t need it. As an early response, you should evaluate all permissions to ensure access isn’t being granted to unauthorized parties. After verifying this, all confidential information should be divided into various sensitivity levels to control access to multiple data clusters. Only trustworthy employees with essential requisites should have access to highly confidential data. Patch and Update your Software Patching should be a core part of your business’s DLP strategy, no matter if you’re running a large enterprise with many devices and users or a small business with a few devices and software. Software updates help safeguard your data from unsanctioned users or intruders by resolving security loopholes present in the software. Regular software updates protect your business from the threat and effect of data loss – in terms of cost, risk, and severity. Data Leakage Prevention Best Practice Use the following data loss prevention best practices to protect your sensitive information from external and internal threats: Did you know, more than 90% of data infringements happen due to human error? As fraudsters love to exploit unsuspicious staff, you need to offer mandatory cybersecurity awareness training for your workforce. Data classification helps you control user data access and prevent storing confidential data in unsafe locations thus

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11 Reasons You Should Invest In Data Archival

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A universal fact that will always remain true is “Data will keep growing in size and type” with the progress of time. We are living in a world where we need digital information at our fingertips. Some of this information we need immediately and some we save for later. Applying this to a typical IT setup, the data we save for later can be termed as “Archival”. Interestingly Dictonary.com explains word archive as “any extensive record or collection of data”. This data can become very complicated when not taken seriously. Here, I’m going to share my experiences with data management that make it important to think about archiving old data. Reasons to Invest in Data Archival 1. Managing large data volumes Large volume of unstructured data resides in file servers belonging to several current & past users. Users keep storing their data on the file server sometimes not even realizing if it is really business critical. In all such cases, there is no data handling process when a user leaves the organization. No one to decide which of his data is really business critical and even needs to be retained. For users running a project in collaboration, data is regularly updated from multiple sources into a common shared folder. Many a times I have seen the project owners making a copy with them when the project is over and again leave a copy on the file server as well. Over a period of time and employee turnover, the new management has no way to decide what action can be taken against this data. Even Compliance does not allow deleting the data for a minimum of 7 to 10 years. This keeps pilling up the file server forcing you to regularly upgrade the file servers both in terms of performance as well as capacity. Large volumes of emails for the user mailboxes create the same threat for the mailing application as well. Does it sounds familiar ?? 2. Managing mailbox sizes Users for organizations running with quota based mailboxes keep moving their data to archival mailboxes manually to free up space to handle more emails. The over loaded mailboxes do not allow sending & receiving emails any further and until the user gets back into his limits, he is struck with email movement. The manual process of moving mails out of the mailbox is cumbersome. It also needs a regular watch on the mailbox size to try & ensure that this is performed before the size goes beyond the limit. This process has all the ingredients to result in a potential data loss if not handled very carefully. 3. Reducing Storage Footprint To store such large volumes of data, you need to regularly upgrade the infrastructure both in terms of capacity & capability to handle more data with the exception of course that the original investment is over-sized. Even in that case, the technological advancement and Warranty renewals prompt you to look for a newer storage equally over-sized in every warranty renewal cycle. Archival helps move data to a secondary storage. For files, you can set an archival policy based on your data ageing, access patterns as well as data types. A scheduled archival job run would move this data to archival storage and reduce the footprint on the primary storage. It leaves a stub in the primary storage which is sized in KBs. The movement is transparent to the user with the only difference that when he accesses this old file, it gets downloaded from the secondary storage. For mailboxes, Email archival can be set to push the emails and the attachments to the archival storage and bring in a considerable reduction in the mailbox capacity by deleting them from the mailbox. Archival jobs don’t need to be online especially for file servers so an offline job can ensure zero production impact without bothering the users. Mailing applications can be configured for online journalling which copies an incoming/outgoing mail to the archive while delivering it to the user thereby again no performance impact. Removing them from the mailbox can also be done offline and synchronize the mailbox when the user comes online. Overall it helps reduce the storage footprint and maintain application performance. 4. Enhancing Employee Productivity Combining the above two & introducing an automated tool configured with the desired polices, you can enhance employee productivity by letting the tool take care of archives especially scheduled during off-peak hours. Users would no more be engaged in manual copying and their systems keep working seamlessly. Journalling emails and then short-cutting the old emails from the mailboxes automatically reduces users burden to perform manual archiving and deletion and reduces the risk of data loss. For files, you can set a data archival policy based on your data aging, access patterns as well as data types. A scheduled data archival job run by the archiving tools would move this online data to archival storage and reduce the footprint on the primary storage. It leaves a stub in the primary storage which is sized in KBs. The movement is transparent to the user with the only difference being that when he accesses this old file, it gets downloaded from the secondary storage. For mailboxes, Email archival can be set to push the emails and the attachments to the archival storage and bring in a considerable reduction in the mailbox capacity by deleting them from the mailbox. Archiving tools allow data archival especially for file servers to be run as offline jobs to ensure zero production performance impact while archiving old data. Mail archiving can be performed online through journalling which copies incoming/outgoing mail to the archival infrastructure while delivering it to the user thereby again no performance impact. Removing them from the mailbox can also be done offline and synchronize the mailbox when the user comes online. Overall it helps reduce the storage footprint and maintain application performance. 4. Enhance Employee Productivity Combining the above two & introducing automated data archiving tools configured

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8 Ways To Prevent Ransomware Attack from Damaging Businesses

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Ransomware Attack have compromised many organizations’ data by preventing access to encrypted critical business information, which directly impacts the business and its brand credibility. Chances are that you may have heard of at least one organization that has suffered a ransomware attack. It could be your local police department, a hospital, or even someone in your family. Such cases are all over the news. There are several types of ransomware, including Wannacry, Petya, Locky, EternalBlue, LataRebo Locker, TeslaCrypt, and Bad Rabbit, among others. Wannacry was a major ransomware infection that hit a large part of the world two years back, the impact of which is still left after two years. The ransomware attacks claimed over 200,000 victims in over 150 countries. Many of the victims were locked out of their files with a ransom demanding their release. Needless to say, it was a disaster for the affected businesses. The attack is a demonstration of how malicious ransomware can be. It has put a billion-dollar dent in many economies all over the world. Protecting yourself against ransomware attacks is therefore becoming all the more important. Needless to say, it was a disaster for the affected businesses. The attack is a demonstration of how malicious ransomware can be. It has put a billion-dollar dent in many economies all over the world. Protecting yourself against ransomware attacks is therefore becoming all the more important. Ransomware variants of the kind of Samsam and Sodinokibi have targeted many businesses with ransomware attacks, using a wide range of brute force tactics to break into networks and multiple devices across the entire organization, placing personal and business data in jeopardy before the attackers issuing high-value ransom. While backup and restoration services are essential elements to safeguard your endpoint security, it is just one of several safeguards within a multi-faceted approach needed to effectively mitigate the risk of a ransomware attack. Recovering from backup copies can help reduce the extent of damage to business users by saving sensitive files. Using a robust Cloud Backup service can be an additional safeguard over routine on-premise backup. Cloud storage services will enable protection against a situation of a ransomware attack on the entire network. Ransomware attacks are costly & therefore ransomware protection is critical. The type of Ransomware attacks can vary in size, but it’s becoming increasingly common for hackers to demand payment worth thousands of dollars to restore access to the network. And the reason these cyber criminals can demand this much money from victims is to regain access to data. If you have not suffered a ransomware attack, then you are either extremely lucky or have put some measures in place to protect your files. Once your computer gets infected with ransomware, and you don’t have a backup, you can only hope the cyber criminals make some kind of mistake. Otherwise, you will be left with the option of paying whatever ransom they demand or losing your files forever. If there is a situation where the entire corporate network is locked with a malware attack, it means the organization can’t do business. They could end up losing large amounts of revenue for each day, perhaps even every hour, the network is unavailable. For context, it’s estimated that the NotPetya ransomware attack cost shipping firm Maersk losses amounting to millions of dollars. If an organization chooses not to pay the ransomware demand, it will find itself losing revenue for a period that could last weeks, perhaps months. They’ll also likely find themselves paying a large sum of money for a security company to come in and restore access to the devices by ransomware decryption. In many cases, this might even cost more than the ransom payment. Still, at least in this instance, the payment is going to a legitimate business rather than funding the cybercriminals. Since cybercriminals are motivated by money, many ransomware attacks target big businesses and corporate networks. After all, they have the most to lose if their data is encrypted. A good number of major organizations suffered at least one ransomware attack in the last year. The main reason big businesses are the targets of these malicious attacks is that they are ‘profitable’ victims. Government agencies or hospitals need to immediately access their files and are more likely to succumb to ransom demands. Other organizations, such as law firms, may want to keep news about a possible breach to themselves since they have sensitive data and may look to settle the issue with the attackers. Additionally, big firms are targeted because they can be easily infected. This is because most of the employees working outside their IT departments don’t take cybersecurity seriously. Most assume cybersecurity is being handled by the company and therefore feel no need to be proactive in managing their own cyberdefense networks. Such employees end up downloading risky email attachments or visiting suspicious sites, exposing the business to ransomware attacks. There are a variety of ways in which ransomware can get into your computer. The most common is through downloading a spam email attachment (phishing scam). The attachments are disguised as trustworthy, but once downloaded, they can take over your computer. Some ransomware has built-in social engineering that tricks you into allowing administrative access to the perpetrators. Another way that ransomware can gain entry into your computer is by clicking on ‘malverts,’ which are fake ads generated by hackers. Other Ransomware, such as NotPetya, is super aggressive and can enter your computer by exploiting a security hole without necessarily tricking you into clicking anything. Once Ransomware has gained access to your system, it typically encrypts some or all the files in your computer, making them inaccessible. Once your files have been decrypted, they can only be opened by a mathematical key only possessed by the cybercriminal. The attackers then contact you, informing you that your files have been encrypted and can only be accessed if you pay a certain amount of money. In most cases, they demand payment in cryptocurrency as they are

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Anatomy of Six Backup Features to Look for in 2024

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If you are looking to kick-off 2024 strongly, make sure that your solutions have these features we recommend. Safeguard your growth by truly understanding what your future solution should look like. The following are the six anatomy backup features to look for in 2024. Must Have Features in Backup 1. Ransomware Protection Ransomware has been a popular word all over the last couple of years. Suddenly you find your data getting encrypted and you rush down to isolate it from the rest of your network. Someone asks for a ransom but very few get the data back. Even after paying the ransom. A lot of enterprises are satisfied considering their Anti Virus is a good protection but that is not necessarily true. A lot relies on the backup copies that you make for your data as the primary corrupted/encrypted data is generally not recoverable. In a very basic protection plan, backups are the most important aspect. However, many of you face challenges with your backups as well. Hackers have been able to hack your backup repositories too and get them corrupted. So, how can you rely on backups? Cloud backup helps you a lot in this basic level of protection as backed-up data moves out of your own network so, even if your own network is infected you still get protection. In one of the cases, the cloud backups of our enterprise customer suddenly started taking heavier loads. There was more data to back up and it seemed that no deduplication or compression was working on it. Thanks to our 24×7 monitoring, we analyzed and found that these are some new files with a unique extension. We immediately blocked the backup and alerted the IT administrators. It was through this mechanism that the IT realized they have been attacked and their files have been encrypted. Backup indirectly helped to detect encrypted files. We formatted the server and recovered the older version of files to get it operational quickly. The encrypted copies stayed isolated from the real data. This works well, especially on cloud backups that create new files and are unable to back them up. The enterprise was also using a traditional virtual tape library-based backup which just quickly dumped the encrypted files and backed them up successfully. The corrupted version of backups was immediately deleted but continued to carry the risk of corrupting other versions of backups available on the same network. We have been able to help you recover the last good copy of your files both in the case of file servers and MS SQL databases without the need to pay a ransom. To be able to recover quickly from an attack through backups, two key things should be kept in mind: Yes, it is very important that the recovered backups do not re-introduce the malware back into the production data. Attackers silently place an attack loop in the file system. They leave it there for it to get activated on a particular date. When you restore the backups, you end up restoring the attack look agent as well. One of the key things to watch for in your backups in the year 2024 is protection against the ransomware attack loop. Your backup application should be scanning through the packets being backed up & packets being restored. It should be able to detect & isolate malicious code and alert the administrators of infection. Before the actual restoration, legacy recovery files are scanned again to prevent the Attack Loop. The other important things to consider while backing up include: Be careful while using your data backup solution & deployment strategies. Backups are going to help you recover from ransomware issues, so they need to be configured to perform the same. Check out our post on 8 ways to prevent ransomware from damaging your business Seven years back not many agreed on the importance of backing up your Salesforce data. We moved ahead and integrated backing up Salesforce along with other SaaS application data including Office 365 & Google Suite. For a long, Enterprises thought these are not required features, these are only good to have features. This was because of the very slow adoption of Cloud SaaS provider applications. It has taken a while for enterprises to realize the benefits of using these SaaS applications. On top of it, many believe that the data stored on the SaaS platform is always safe which is not true. There have been continuous debates on the possibility of data loss owing to the level of high availability provided by all the cloud service providers. You don’t want to imagine equipment or a DC failure at that level. However, it is important to understand that accidental deletions due to user behavior cannot be ignored. For all mailing applications, 14 to 30 days is the time period till the deleted mail is recoverable. What about going beyond that? For file data also, they allow you to enable versioning. However, you may still need to produce a file with a one-year-old version as per the compliance needs so how do you handle that and how many versions do you plan for these? Therefore it is very important to consider backing up this data. Your backup application must be ready for backing up cloud-based applications like Google Apps, Office365, etc. The application should work within the respective service provider environment and send data to a different environment preferably a different provider to be additionally safe. Not all backup applications support backing up cloud applications. Some of them have limited support like backing up O365 mails but not Sharepoint & OneDrive. Be careful and prepared for this. With the ease of handling data offered by Cloud Service Providers, you would start using them soon so be ready. Also, don’t consider your files on a service provider app as a backup to your on-premise data. Use them for what they are meant to be to get the real use of them. 2. Compilances There is a

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5 Steps to Create an Effective Data Archiving Strategy

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Data archiving is the process of spotting data that is no more active and shifting it out of the production systems into long-term storage. Archived data is stored so that businesses can bring it back into use, anytime, as and when needed. The data archival strategy frees up the storage space for newer data, which is beneficial for businesses having limited resources. By archiving email, messages, files, and database records, businesses can free up space without risking regulatory violations or losing useful data that need to be utilized going forward. While data archiving and data backup are often mentioned in the same breath, both these terms are actually used for totally different purposes. Archiving is for compliance, space management, risk aversion, and long-term retention. Backup, on the other hand, is for recovery from hardware breakdown or data loss, or corruption. We’ve listed below some important steps to create data archiving strategies that make your move to holistic data storage as smooth as possible for your business: Steps to Create Effective Data Archiving Startegy Which Data to be Stored To determine what must be stored and then consider what sort of data your business handles. For instance, do you want your emails discoverable? Then list them in your data inventory as searchable archive material. Before you begin listing data to get archived, keep in mind, there is no universal guide to determine which data to archive. So, better sketch out a strategy with each division of your business, in tandem with your legal team, to dig up the safest and smartest course. If you handle confidential client data, such as lawyers, healthcare practitioners, and real estate agents, you should be aware of the industry norms about the storage of particular data. For instance, HIPAA regulations require healthcare institutions to maintain patient information for a specified time frame based on each state’s guidelines. You should archive the records of clients or patients who are no longer active, which is a fitting first step if you’re just beginning to carry out an archiving plan. While you need to maintain their records for legal reasons, their files are no longer active and don’t need constant backup. Also Read: Best Practices for Healthcare Data Backup & Recovery To keep everybody involved with your business in sync, devise an archive policy that entails a formalized and holistic stack of rules and processes. This document would contain: Archive Policy Document As summarized above, devising a solid policy requires input from your business’s IT professionals and the data archive provider’s admins and app owners. The aim is to create a document that is manageable and enforceable and requires the authentication of your business’s annual review and legal counsel. 2. Choose Data Archival Service Provider The security of your archived data must be a vital element while picking up a provider to manage your business’s critical data. As mentioned earlier, several industry norms require the safeguarding of specific data against damage and loss. This is where DLP or Data Loss Prevention strategy comes into the picture. 3. Encryption Encryption is key to ensuring confidential files remain that way. Encryption lets you approve and limit access to specific information based on your employees’ roles and situations. This ensures that an end-user can’t tweak the archived data. 4. Secure Data Backup You can also minimize data loss using a secure data backup through storage on remote servers. And, if the archived files ever need to get out of storage, they can be backed up whenever changes are made. 5. Audit Furthermore, data backup should offer an auditing method that can notify you anytime somebody accesses – or attempts to access – your archived documents. This develops comprehensive audit logs for you to recollect whenever your archived data is put into question. Before opting for any data archiving service, create a checklist of all the aspects you’re looking for to enjoy top-level data storage. Apart from what we’ve discussed above, you should look for services that come with: A data archival strategy is a critical component of your data lifecycle management policy, offering you a way to restore data while staying within a feasible storage budget. Moreover, today’s data archival solutions have solid infrastructure and search abilities that let businesses easily find and restore relevant information whenever they want. Having said that, surging data volumes and increasingly intricate regulatory frameworks have posed various challenges for IT pros tasked with managing data archiving on limited budgets. A top choice for most businesses, Ace Data offers data archiving solutions that allow easy access to your archived data whenever you want while minimizing the archiving storage cost and streamlining regulatory adherence. For more information, get in touch with us today, and let’s talk.

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Best Practices for Healthcare Data Backup & Recovery

Leave a Comment / All, Data backup & Recovery, Healthcare / acedata@admin

The importance of data management cannot be overstated in Healthcare. Today more healthcare organizations rely on digital storage but simultaneously ensuring that their database is safe and secure and performs well during disaster is quite challenging. Cyber attacks from hackers such as ransomware attacks on healthcare are making data storage and recovery even more complex. Ransomware attacks may cause you to lose all of the important sensitive data or the minutes captured during work sessions. Hackers lock down your files until their demands are met. So, keeping your data safe is one of the most important aspects of Healthcare and the key to success is – Healthcare Data backup. There are different ways to take Healthcare Data Backup. And here are some of the best practices you should consider while planning your Healthcare Data backup & recovery strategy. Best Practices for Healthcare Data Backup & Recovery 1. Automate your Backup Automating your backup processes is the best way to ensure that they are always running, regardless of what else might be going on. You can schedule healthcare data backups for particular days and times so you don’t need live monitoring with a busy workload – just make sure not to overwork any one server. 2.Test Your Backup It’s important to test your backups regularly because this will ensure that all processes are working as they should be. It also gives you peace of mind knowing everything has been tested and calendar time spent on recovery efforts minimized, meaning less stress when things go wrong. 3.Encryption The best way to keep your backups safe and secure is by encrypting them with the help of a password. This will ensure that no one else can access it unless they know what’s happening, which makes security much better. 4.Good Security Systems The key to keeping your company’s data safe is having a good security system. This means not only having access controls in place but also making sure that the people who need them can’t get what they want by using other methods. 5.Proper Data Backup Plan To ensure the safety of your data, it is important to have a data backup plan in place. A good way for businesses and organizations alike would be by storing their backups off-site so that they can continue with business as usual if there’s any kind of disaster or something like an inaccessible server due to pandemic infections which could cause total network connectivity loss overnight without warning – this means no more emails! Go for Cloud Backup for Healthcare to get an automatic off-site copy. Make sure you have a Plan B. If something happens and your data is lost, having multiple copies will help restore it from backups (or even more so if they’re in different locations). As technology advances quickly today with remote copies for offsite storage becoming easier than ever before thanks largely due the cloud services industry’s innovation – don’t forget about this key component! Adopt the 3-2-1 approach of keeping three copies of data: one primary and two backups. Keep them on two different media and at least keep one copy off-site. 6.Protect from Ransomware Attacks Protect your healthcare data backups from possible ransomware attacks. Scan them while taking the backups. Keep the threat repository updated regularly and scan the backup repository to ensure that old backups in the store are not infected. Control attack looks and the zero-day threat of malware exploding in the future should be taken care of. Finally, keep scanning as you recover the data. Infected backups should not get recovered to reinfect the network. Read – How data backup in healthcare can make or break your response to ransomware attacks By following these best practices, healthcare organizations can protect their data against loss or corruption and ensure that their business operations can continue well, even in the event of a disaster.

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Recovery Point Objective (RPO)- One Stop Guide

Leave a Comment / All, Cloud Backup, Disaster Recovery / acedata@admin

Data backup is as imperative as data protection for enterprises of any size. Reason: Outage, data breach, and any other disaster can happen anytime, anywhere, without warning. And data loss is a business loss if there are no measures in place to recover the lost data. So, how do you ensure to recover the data in case of an event? Through data backup. While earlier organizations had a traditional way of backing up their data, with digitalization, a huge amount of data can’t be backed up in a traditional way. So, cloud backup solutions and services were introduced. And while discussing cloud backup solutions or cloud backup services, we are sure you have come across the term RPO or Recovery Point Objective. And most of you must have wondered what exactly the recovery point objective (RPO) is. In this article, we will discuss RPO in detail, creating a one-stop guide for all your business. What is Recovery Point Objective (RPO)? Before we delve into the importance and benefits of RPO, let’s understand what RPO is. According to the definition, Recovery Point Objective or RPO is the metric defining the maximum acceptable amount of data loss an organization can tolerate in the case of a mishap. RPO represents the time when a business’ data must be recovered to minimize the disaster’s impact on its operations. With the RPO, organizations are in a better position to plan and implement disaster recovery and business continuity strategies. To ensure a successful RPO strategy, businesses, irrespective of their size, must calculate the loss tolerance occurring between data backups. Simultaneously, the time frame required for transitioning from disaster to operational status is also crucial according to scheduled data backups. Since the RPO is the last point when a business’ data is maintained in a manner that can be used, it also helps in planning disaster recovery along with permissible backup intervals. For instance, when you have an RPO of an hour, it is imperative for you to perform data backup every hour. How to Define Your RPOs? When we talk about defining your RPOs, we are talking about the frequency with which you want to update your data files. Here are some factors that may influence your RPOs. What Do RPOs Determine? Once the RPOs are defined, they can help organizations determine the following: What is Zero RPO? An unacceptable data loss is denoted by Zero RPO. Zero RPO is the data your industry can’t afford to lose, even for a split second, without having major consequences or repercussions. Continuous data protection and replication are the keys to ensuring Zero RPO. Examples of Zero RPO Two prime examples of Zero RPO are – Digital Medical data and financial transactions at a bank. Importance of Recovery Point Objective The recovery Point Objective, as learned, is the amount of data loss an organization can tolerate, which is important for various reasons. And it is deemed critical in industries where organizations can’t afford data loss even for a second. Here are some of the reasons why recovery point objective is important for businesses irrespective of their size. With RPO, organizations can – 3. Assist in determining your Service Level Agreement (SLA) during disruption: One of the crucial roles the recovery point objective plays is a role of determining the Service Level Agreement or SLA between an organization and its service providers. The SLA helps in defining the expected levels of service during a disruption. Organizations can leverage RPO in SLA determination by considering the following: We have learned how crucial is the recovery point objective, but here are some of the major benefits of RPO for a business that deals with critical data most of the time. Factors Involved to Calculate RPO There are several factors on which the calculation of the recovery point objective is listed below. Top Recovery Point Objective Trends in 2024 Some of the top recovery point objective trends to watch out for in 2024 include: Recover and Resume with Ace Data AceData is one of the most trusted Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) providers. With a committed team of experts who have extensive hands-on experience, we help businesses recover data and get access to IT infrastructure after a disaster. We offer end-to-end disaster recovery solutions. So, whenever a disaster affects your internal systems, your DRaaS system can quickly come into action, providing you with zero downtime or the planned Recovery Point Objective (RPO). To know more about it, book a demo with Acedata.

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