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In this edition:

• Did You Know - Near Real-time Recovery

• Original Article - Winning Against Ransomware with Near Real-time Recovery

• Artificial Intelligence News & Bytes

• Cybersecurity News & Bytes

• AI Power Prompt

• Social Media Image of the Week

 Did You Know - Near Real-time Recovery

• Did you know implementing immutable backups ensures ransomware attackers cannot modify or delete critical recovery data?

• Did you know businesses with proactive recovery testing are 85% more likely to recover from ransomware incidents without paying a ransom?

• Did you know near real-time recovery solutions can reduce downtime costs by up to 85% in the event of a ransomware attack?

• Did you know 43% of ransomware victims pay the ransom, yet 24% never recover their encrypted data despite payment?

• Did you know continuous backup validation can identify corrupted backups before they are needed, saving critical recovery time during an attack?

• Did you know advanced AI-based ransomware detection systems can stop threats in progress, ensuring backups remain unaffected?

• Did you know near real-time data replication minimizes the risk of data loss by ensuring critical updates are always backed up?

• Did you know near real-time recovery solutions can ensure compliance with regulatory mandates for data restoration timeframes?

Winning Against Ransomware with Near Real-time Recovery

Reducing Recovery Time from Days to Hours or even Minutes

Ransomware gangs aren’t just evolving; they’re perfecting their craft. Last year, a single attack paralyzed a major hospital chain for weeks, jeopardizing patient care and costing millions. The message is clear: traditional backup strategies are no longer enough. For today’s CISOs and CIOs, surviving these attacks demands more than reactive measures. It requires a paradigm shift to near real-time recovery, a strategy that doesn’t just mitigate damage but largely neutralizes its potential impact. As a former 4x CIO and CISO who has dealt with numerous cyber attacks and now provides incident response tabletops to many private and public sector customers, I can emphatically state, “There is much to be done, given most organizations have little to no tested respond and recover capabilities.”

The Evolution of Ransomware Ransomware has evolved from its origins as a blunt instrument and has become much more lethal. Early attacks merely encrypted files, leaving a digital ransom note attempting to hold them hostage until they paid. Today’s variants are much more surgical and result in more damage. Bad actors exfiltrate sensitive data to force double extortion. They corrupt backups to sever lifelines and remove domain controllers to eliminate authentication capabilities, keeping everyone off the network. What many do not realize is that these bad actors often penetrate their networks and lie dormant for months, mapping out critical systems before striking.

Consider the 2023 attack on a well-known global logistics firm. Hackers not only locked data but also disabled industrial control systems, halting shipments across three continents. Recovery took 19 days. The cost? Over $200 million in operational losses, not counting reputational harm.

“Ransomware continues to be a leading threat … one reason for its longevity is that cybercriminals can cause significant operational downtime with relatively minimal effort, forcing organizations to consider paying the ransom to get back online.” - Verizon 2023 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR)

Rethinking the Recovery Paradigm Organizations must adopt a recovery framework measured in minutes, not days, to outpace these advanced threats. This hinges on four interconnected strategies:

1. Immutable Backups

Immutable backups are the digital equivalent of a bank vault storing data in a write-once, read-many format. Even if attackers breach systems, they can’t alter or delete these snapshots. Several notable cloud and modern storage providers now offer this advanced capability, but adoption has slightly lagged. Gartner states in its Hype Cycle for Storage and Data Protection Technologies that “Gartner identifies immutable backup as a high-benefit capability, indicating a growing trend toward its adoption among mid to large enterprises.”

2. Automation and Orchestration

Manual recovery is painful and often a considerable liability when ransomware strikes. Automated orchestration tools detect breaches, isolate infected systems, and spin up clean environments without human intervention. The automation found in Cisco’s XDR platform, which works hand in hand with a modern data storage solution like Cohesity, can often reduce recovery times from days to hours.

3. Air-Gapped Environments

Storing backups offline, or “air-gapped,” remains a standard at this point. But modern storage solutions go even further. Think encrypted, geographically dispersed copies in underground bunkers or stored in the cloud with additional security.

You can read the rest of this article here.

Artificial Intelligence News & Bytes 🧠

Cybersecurity News & Bytes 🛡️

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AI Power Prompt

This prompt will assist in investigating online, and then create a plan to implement a near real-time recovery solution for your organization.

#CONTEXT: Adopt the role of an expert disaster recovery and business continuity planner. Your task is to investigate online to gather relevant information and create a plan to implement a near real-time recovery solution for an organization. The solution must address key aspects of infrastructure, backup strategies, and recovery mechanisms while minimizing downtime and ensuring data integrity.

#GOAL: You will design a near real-time recovery solution tailored to the specific needs of the organization by incorporating advanced technologies, automation, and scalable infrastructure. The plan should balance cost, performance, and operational feasibility while aligning with the organization’s critical needs.

#RESPONSE GUIDELINES: You will follow a step-by-step approach as outlined below to create the plan:

Identify Business and Technical Needs:

• Conduct an analysis of the organization’s critical systems and data.

• Identify Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs).

• Assess current systems, technologies, and processes. Research and Analyze

Technology Options:

• Investigate solutions for near real-time recovery, such as replication technologies, cloud-based services, or on-premises high-availability systems.

• Compare leading vendors and tools for disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS), storage replication, and database replication.

• Highlight solutions that support seamless failover and failback processes.

Develop a Scalable and Redundant Architecture:

• Design infrastructure that includes high availability, geographic redundancy, and disaster recovery zones.

• Include recommendations for primary and secondary data centers, cloud integrations, or hybrid setups.

• Address potential bottlenecks or vulnerabilities.

Implement Automation and Monitoring:

• Recommend automation tools for recovery orchestration and real-time health monitoring.

• Specify software and scripts that support instant failover or data synchronization.

Define a Backup and Replication Strategy:

• Outline methods for real-time replication of critical data and systems.

• Specify backup intervals, storage mediums, and encryption techniques to ensure security.

• Propose testing and validation protocols for backup reliability.

Develop a Comprehensive Implementation Plan:

• List phases, including infrastructure setup, configuration, testing, and deployment.

• Include key milestones, responsible teams, and timelines.

• Ensure detailed documentation of the plan for ease of execution.

Monitor and Optimize Post-Implementation:

• Suggest a strategy for continuous monitoring of the recovery solution.

• Provide guidelines for ongoing testing, performance optimization, and periodic updates.

#INFORMATION ABOUT ME:

• My business: [DESCRIPTION OF YOUR ORGANIZATION OR INDUSTRY]

• Key systems requiring protection: [LIST OF CRITICAL SYSTEMS]

• Current infrastructure setup: [OVERVIEW OF EXISTING INFRASTRUCTURE]

• Recovery Time Objective (RTO): [REQUIRED TIME TO RESTORE OPERATIONS]

• Recovery Point Objective (RPO): [ACCEPTABLE DATA LOSS DURATION]

• Available budget: [BUDGET RANGE FOR IMPLEMENTATION]

• Preferred technology stack: [SPECIFIC TECHNOLOGY PREFERENCES]

#OUTPUT: Provide a detailed plan for implementing a near real-time recovery solution, including:

Key recommendations based on research findings. A step-by-step implementation roadmap. Specific technologies, tools, and services to be used. Cost and resource estimates for each phase. Risk assessment and mitigation strategies.

Social Media Image of the Week

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