Anyway it gets sliced, ransomware attacks will result in multi-billion dollar losses to businesses worldwide in the years ahead.
Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that ransomware will cost nearly $265 billion worldwide by 2031 – up from $42 billion in 2024 – with a new attack on a business every two seconds.
In the United States alone, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center reported it received 2,825 ransomware complaints in 2023 – the last year full year of available data – that resulted in losses of $59.6 million.
“Ransomware is in the news all the time,” says Anders Lindquist, senior solution architect at Hitachi Vantara. “There’s big money in cybercrime, and today, the attackers are not just using better phishing techniques, they use artificial intelligence to extract data.”
Lindquist say it’s difficult for law enforcement to keep up, pointing out that takedowns over the last couple of year of groups such as Lockbit and Hive are temporary wins.
“Their servers and websites are shut down, but in the end, most of these groups are not prosecuted, so what can the IT teams at companies do?” poses Lindquist.
Strong Protection for When Every Organization is a Target
Lindquist says many companies turn to Hitachi Vantara for advice because they know the old-fashioned way of managing backup and storage won’t cut it in a world of well-organized, often state-sponsored attackers armed with the same AI tools that many companies now have.
Hitachi Vantara offers ransomware protection through its data protection products and services, offering features such as immutable snapshots, data retention policies, and secure storage capabilities.
Here are the high points of Hitachi Vantara’s ransomware protection:
1. Immutable snapshots: Hitachi Vantara VSP One storage systems create snapshots that are locked and cannot be altered by attackers, effectively protecting them from ransomware encryption.
2. Data retention policies: The Data Retention Utility (DRU) within Hitachi Vantara’s OpsCenter Protector lets security and IT teams set specific retention policies on snapshots, ensuring they remain protected for a defined period.
3. Secure storage: The Hitachi Content Platform (HCP) offers features such as compliance-oriented data deletion, the ability to set limited storage durations, and irretrievable data shredding, the combination of which adds another layer of security against ransomware. Another benefit: HCP integrates with various backup products such as Veeam, Rubrik, and Commvault, further enhancing ransomware protection.
By creating immutable snapshots and enforcing data retention policies, Hitachi Vantara isolates critical data from potential ransomware attacks, enabling quick recovery from a clean backup if a breach happens. Hitachi Vantara systems also offer robust encryption that protects data even if it’s accessed by malicious actors.
“People must realize that the attackers have been doing reconnaissance for weeks and months, that the endpoint and monitoring tools did not work, they did not detect the threats, malware and privileged escalation,” says Lindquist. “Hitachi Vantara’s solutions recover to the pre-encrypted state, eradicate the malware, validate data integrity, and re-protect the workloads so they can go back into production.”
Ready to learn more? Watch the webinar “Ransomware Protection with Hitachi Vantara.”
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