Introduction: Protecting Your Data from Cyber Attacks
Microsoft has come under fire recently due to allegations of negligent cybersecurity practices, specifically relating to their Azure platform, currently, the second most popular cloud platform holding approximately 23 percent of the global cloud market share as of Q1 2023 (Statista). The vulnerabilities, discovered earlier this year, would allow bad actors to access sensitive data and authentication information that would put entire networks in danger of major breaches. The full gravity of the situation is yet to be realized, however, now that the vulnerability has gained considerable media attention it is difficult not to assume that there will be companies affected in the preceding weeks. The importance of implementing solutions to ensure the security of your organization’s data has never been more apparent and we can help provide the resources you need to do it right.
A Big Problem
In March of this year, Microsoft was notified by Tenable’s Research team which had unveiled a serious issue while investigating the Azure platform. According to Tenable’s official report, Microsoft acknowledged them shortly after confirming the issue, later stating in a requested follow-up in July that the issue had been resolved. This fix was later deemed insufficient for all affected customers and after being informed that a complete fix would not be finished until late September, Tenable proceeded with public disclosure of the issue to its customers on their own site as well as a post on CEO Amit Yoran’s LinkedIn surmising the events of the past few months.
This situation occurred just days after Senator Ron Wyden appealed to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the FTC, and DOJ requesting that Microsoft be held accountable for “negligent cybersecurity practices.” According to Wyden’s letter, these practices were taken advantage of by bad actors, leading to stolen emails across multiple government agencies. Yoran cited Google Project Zero in his post that “Microsoft products have accounted for an aggregate 42.5% of all zero-days discovered since 2014.” However, it should be noted that zero-day attacks themselves are notoriously difficult to defend against (hence the term “zero day”) as well as “Microsoft’s products” being incredibly broad terminology.
Everyone Gets Hit Eventually
If you utilize a major cloud provider such as Azure you are going to incur some form of risk, and the major issue with the above situation is Microsoft’s lack of transparency. Whether you use Azure/M365, Google Cloud, or even AWS, no one is immune to a zero-day, or the many other types of cyber attacks, even the most security-conscious companies. It should be well understood at this point that it is next to impossible to be entirely shielded from an attack on your organization’s data. It’s for these exact reasons that it is important to have a plan in place for disaster recovery or at the very least consistent backups of mission-critical files and internal applications.
Castle Interactive’s experts can work in direct collaboration with your organization to build a tailored plan for disaster recovery and/or backups based on your current and projected requirements.
Understanding the Difference: Disaster Recovery vs Backups
Disaster recovery and backups are two crucial components of a robust data protection strategy, each addressing distinct aspects of data loss and continuity. Backups primarily focus on preserving data copies for the purpose of restoring individual files, databases, or entire systems in case of accidental deletion, corruption, or hardware failures. Backups create snapshots of data at specific points in time, allowing organizations to recover to a known state before the data loss event occurred. While backups are essential for data integrity and day-to-day operational recovery, they may involve some downtime during the restoration process.
On the other hand, disaster recovery goes beyond traditional backups by encompassing a more comprehensive strategy aimed at maintaining business continuity in the face of catastrophic events. Disaster recovery involves not only the restoration of data but also the recovery of entire IT systems, applications, and services after major disruptions like natural disasters, cyberattacks, or hardware failures. This includes having redundant infrastructure, failover mechanisms, and orchestrated recovery plans that can swiftly transition operations to alternative systems or locations. Unlike backups, disaster recovery aims to minimize downtime and maintain critical business functions even in the wake of severe disruptions, ensuring that organizations can continue operating and serving customers with minimal interruption.
In essence, while backups provide a safety net for data preservation and operational recovery, disaster recovery strategies are designed to address more significant and potentially enterprise-threatening events, focusing on the rapid restoration of full IT ecosystems to ensure business continuity and minimize financial and reputational losses.
DRaaS and BaaS on the Veeam Platform
The Veeam Platform is one of the most well-respected names in the field of disaster recovery and data backups, with the proper implementation you can rest assured that in the event of an attack, your data can be replicated and recovered with ease. Veeam can be built with almost any business configuration in mind allowing you to mix and match the services you need for your company.
Key Benefits of Utilizing Veeam (Full Veeam Documentation for BaaS & DRaaS)
A single platform that protects cloud, virtual, and physical workloads
Instant recovery options to eliminate downtime for your most critical assets
Scalability to protect environments of any size with near-zero recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO)
Fully software-defined and flexible for any hardware and storage
Easily introduce and integrate offsite backup solutions for even further redundancy
To find out more about how Castle Interactive can help your business build a comprehensive plan for your disaster recovery and backups, click here to schedule a free consultation or get in touch with one of our experts, we can’t wait to hear from you.
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