PowerProtect Cyber Recovery

What is Cyberspace? Cyberspace refers to the virtual computer world, more specifically, an electronic medium used to facilitate online communication. It typically involves a large computer network made up of many worldwide computer subnetworks that employ TCP/IP protocol to assist in communication and data exchange activities. The term cyberspace was initially introduced by William Gibson in his 1984 book, Neuromancer. Since everything and everyone is connected or associated with cyberspace either via work, personal use at home, cellphones, and more means there is a ton of information being sent across and stored in a cyber environment.

However, not everybody connected or associated with cyberspace has the best intentions. It is a great idea to protect yourself or your company's data. This is easier said than done of course, but even with the best protection solutions doesn’t mean the worse couldn’t happen. A cyber-attack is still possible and can still happen with little to no warning. A few of the most devastating attacks that has happened in the past few years are ransomware attacks. There are other types of cyber-attacks that can happen, check out my previous blog, Data Protection Security PT. 3 – Cyber Attacks (engineeringtechnologists.com), to learn more.

PowerProtect Cyber Recovery

For this blog, we will act like your company has been a victim of a ransomware attack with the attacker encrypting various files from a server. The attacker states that they will provide you with the encryption key once you pay a ransom of $1 million. Of course, paying this money is not the best option but you have to get those files back. What can you do to keep your organization operational with minimal loss? The best solution I can recommend is to recover your last backup file using Dell Technologies PowerProtect Cyber Recovery.

PowerProtect Cyber Recovery solutions and services provide the highest levels of protection, integrity, and confidentiality for your most valuable data and critical business systems. This solution will consistently protect your data and provide recovery across on-premises and multiple cloud environments including Dell Technologies PowerProtect Multi-Cloud, AWS, and other leading service providers. PowerProtect Cyber Recovery will protect the most critical data in a vault environment. Look at this vault environment as a locked cage or room and is always logically isolated via an operational air gap. The vault is not an extra data center, it is usually located at the production or corporate data center and more frequently now, with a third-party solution provider.

PowerProtect Cyber Recovery Multi-Cloud Data Services offers the full capabilities of on-premises Cyber Recovery vault in a secure cloud-adjacent Faction-powered data center. This would provide the additional benefit of physical isolation for the Cyber Recovery vault with the simplicity and economics of the cloud. PowerProtect Cyber Recovery for AWS provides an isolated data center environment disconnected from corporate or backup networks and managed separately through restricted access clearance. It is similar to the on-premises solution; however, it provides physical isolation within the AWS cloud for the vault's location.

The vault operates in 4 basic steps:

Data representing critical applications is synced through the air gap, which is unlocked by the management server into the vault and replicated into the vault target storage. The air gap is then re-locked
A copy of that data is made. Vault retention is configurable, but most keep about a month's worth of copies
The data is retention locked to further protect it from accidental or intentional deletion
The data is optionally analyzed by our analytics engine, CyberSense

Mentioned earlier in the vault operation steps was the analytics engine that is utilized in PowerProtect Recovery called CyberSense. CyberSense is a comprehensive indexing/ machine learning software. When CyberSense sees a new backup image, statistics are generated from that scan, and then compared to previous scans. These analytics from the scans of the new backup image are then placed into the machine learning model. The results are deterministic regarding the data’s integrity and if the data has been corrupted by a ransomware attack. CyberSense will provide reports and details that will assist in the diagnosis and recovery from a cyberattack.

Other Benefits of CyberSense

Provide the attack vector utilized to manipulate the data
Complete listing of files that have been manipulated, providing an understanding of the extent of the attack
Using the event logs CyberSense will report on the user account that corrupted the data
Event log report will also point to the executable that was used to corrupt the data
Can provide the intelligence needed to assist in the restore of the last known good copy of the file

Cyber Facts

I wanted to close out this blog with a couple of fun facts about cybersecurity. I’ve also enjoyed some fun facts about things that I never thought about before. I want to pass along some facts that maybe you didn’t know.

1. There is a hacker attack every 39 seconds

2. 43% of cyber-attacks target small business

3. Since COVID-19, the US FBI reported a 300% increase in reported cybercrimes

4. 95% of cybersecurity breaches are due to human error

I’ve attached the link to these facts as of December 2020 in the useful links section below if you want to read more. However, based on just the four facts that I provided, PowerProtect Cyber Recovery would be able to help reduce the success rate and prevent your organization from falling victim to a cyberattack. I’ve attached some more links below if you want to read more about PowerProtect Cyber Recovery below as well. If you’re a new reader and want to read more content from me, I left that link below also, if this isn’t your first time, thank you again for reading. Until next time everyone!!!