Are you prepared for the worst possible DR scenario

Disasters can strike at any time and at any place and can be from mild to severe (usually severe). But are you prepared for the worst possible disaster attack? It is time to review or update your DR plan as it might not best be suited for the worst disaster recovery case scenario.

Backup for the ‘worst’

‘Worst’ is a relative term. While some enterprises might plan for the end of the world, total destruction as a worst-case scenario, others might not go all overboard with this.

The important thing to note here is that there might be different ‘worst cases’ for different enterprises. Everyone has to be prepared for their version of a worst-case scenario.

Take VFEmail hack for example, the attack took place earlier this year. In the attack, all of VFEmail’s U.S business data was deleted by the hackers overnight, without any sort of warning. Although they were able to ultimately recover its European operations, their U.S business no longer exists.

Many enterprises tend to ignore the fact that they could be hit by a worst-case scenario and don’t find it necessary to prepare for it. This is a very unprofessional approach and should be avoided.

Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery

While planning for the worst cases, business continuity should be in the mind of the business owners. If your backup and DR plan has some uncertainties which might make it vulnerable in case of a worst case scenario, then it is time to rethink and setup a new plan.

Risk calculation is important. It is important to note down exactly how will a severe natural disaster will affect the enterprise. If it is too much to handle for the enterprise, then it is time to setup a plan which is more effective and suitable for the enterprise.

A Disaster Recovery plan should check out a very important point and that is business continuity. If your enterprise can sustain a worst possible natural disaster with no disruptions to day to day operations whatsoever, then your plan is good enough, otherwise, make a plan for it.

Conclusion

Think of a worst DR scenario and put your plan in place of it and ask yourself, how well prepared are you for it? If everything checks out, your good to go, if not, advise a plan which is best suited for mild to sores case scenarios, in terms of disaster recovery.

Utility versus Fully Managed Cloud Backup and DR

The cloud market is getting highly saturated day by day. The options for cloud and backup solutions are increasing. The organizations that fail to benefit from cloud solutions are the ones that don’t take decision making seriously. A high percentage of organizations fail to provide a high availability structure to their customers and employees.

There are two types of backup service providers:

•             Utility Service Providers

•             Fully Managed Backup service providers

What is the difference between the two kinds of services?

The answer lies here:

Utility Service Providers

Utility Service Providers deploy backup and DR as a utility assuming that the organization requires the

utility only and has dedicated trained personnel to oversee the backup processes. Having trained IT

professionals to handle Cloud Backup services can be costly and SMEs and SMBs seldom have that manpower. What happens here is that the solutions are deployed without taking the data security and management into account.

Organizations end up losing data because of poor management. This is because the Backup service has been deployed as a mere utility. The main principle that should be from the cloud service provider’s perspective is that “you handle your end and we handle our”. On these terms, the ambiguity is removed.

Fully Managed Backup Service Providers

A fully managed backup service comes with all the perks of management and security. It saves a lot on the labor overhead. Reduces the possibility of human error. The cloud service provider in this case covers the deployment and overseeing of secure data transfer and backup.

Organizations should make sure that their data and backups are actively monitored. Choose from reliable service providers that prioritize security. The hardware used must be reliable. Cloud service providers should be compliant to well-known standards along with the standard that your organization follows. Lastly, even though the CSPs manage the infrastructure, Organizations must retain visibility and control. Everything should be transparent.

Conclusion

Fully Managed cloud backup and DR comes with a lot of advantages. The mission-critical workloads of the organization are managed with the right priority. Cloud backup service should not be completely ruled out; it is still an option for an organization that has dedicated staff to oversee the backup processes. Choosing from among a lot of different cloud vendors in a saturated market can be challenging. Organizations should not compromise on security, hardware, and control.

Ransomware attack on the Government of Nunavut

Ransomware has struck again and this time the victim is the government of Nunavut. Their communication system was infected with malicious software that encrypted GN servers, workstations and files, rendering them inaccessible. If they have backup and disaster recovery plan they would save thier data from such attacks.

The good news, however, is that GN services remained open and available which shows how serious they were about backups and were fully aware of the ransomware threats.

Backup & DR helped GN to remain open

A new and a very advanced, sophisticated type of ransomware hit the government of Nunavut’s electronic communication system. Fortunately, the essential services were not affected and the GN remained opened, although there may be some delays due to the attack.

Joe Savikataaq, a Nunavut premier stated that Nunavummiut are working non-stop to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and further said that essential services will not be impacted in any way and the GN will continue to operate while this issue is resolved.

Now, how was this possible? 

How were they able to remain operational even after a ransomware attack?

Backup and disaster recovery. They had a proper backup and disaster recovery plan in place which enabled them to continue operations efficiently, without suffering a lot of downtime.

Having said this, they did not remain completely operational. They only managed to remain partially open. So far, electronic data for services related to health, family services, education, justice and finance are down.

If a person wants to visit the QCH or the health clinic, he or she needs to bring their health card and a list of any medication they may take if form of a hard copy, until the services are restored back, which the officials say as a top priority.

The Officials stopped Ransomware from spreading

The attack encrypted individual files on many servers and workstations but the officials were able to stop the malware from spreading and are restoring all the files from the backups.

According to the GN, there was no loss of personal information or any privacy breach and the team was working around the clock to help restore all the files and services as soon as possible. The GN requested patience and corporation from the general public.

 A better DR plan would have boosted the recovery process

There is no doubt that the GN did a formidable job in stopping and containing the malware and are recovering from backups, but it is taking quite a long time to do so. They were able to restore some operations and were partially available but still suffered some inconvenience as their communication system was infected.

All this could have been avoided if they had a reliable and efficient DR backup plan which offers RTOs less than 15 minutes and offers end-to-end encryption which makes it highly resilient to ransomware. StoneFly, for example, offers such disaster recovery solutions in a very cost effective way.

Conclusion

The ransomware attack on the government of Nunavut reminds us how common these attacks have become and how important it is for any organization to setup a backup and disaster recovery plan. It enables organizations to restore workstations and servers and continue operations without suffering any sort of downtime whatsoever.

3-2-1 Backup Strategy - What it means & how to achieve it

Backup administrators are often tasked with creating a reliable backup of organizational workload and data. There are several backup best practices that the data managers must follow to keep their backups safe and secure.

They need to have a well-defined backup strategy like 3-2-1 Backup Strategy, along with that they must have a backup and disaster recovery plan.

The most modern solution for an off-site copy of data is having cloud data storage and disaster recovery solutions. Backup for disaster recovery is necessary for business continuity.

Here is the explanation of the 3-2-1 backup strategy:

Three copies of the important data

This strategy focuses on data redundancy which is important for disaster recovery and business continuity planning as well as data security compliance. The data managers or administrators must make at least three copies of data that are the first step in this strategy. The copies have to be current and must include an original copy along with two more copies.

Two different durable storage media

The second step here is storage and the two copies have to be stored on two different media. Making sure that the storage media used are durable if the data has to increase in future then the media have to be scalable as well. The data types also matter a lot; with tiered storage, this can be easily tackled with.

One copy of data off premises

One of the copy has to be off-premises to make sure that on-premises disasters do not affect the third copy. Cloud is perfect modern DR site because of its agility, durability, security and recovery time as well.

Once again the solutions in place for should complement the risk-free 3-2-1 strategy. Organizations should use cloud-agnostic backup, storage and gateway solutions like stonefly gateway that can be configured to support multiple public clouds. So you can have multiple cloud backups as well. Microsoft cloud backup can be used for data backups.

Conclusion

To minimize the risk of losing data many organizations introduce data redundancy. The 3-2-1 backup rule is the best practice IT administrators follow this makes the backup more reliable.

Using durable storage solutions has to be another priority for organizations. For cloud backup and archiving, organizations can use storage gateways that support hybrid and multi-cloud environments. This complements the 3-2-1 backup strategy for cloud data storage and backup.

A data breach leaks personal data of citizens of Ecuador

Ecuador recently has been hit by a major database breach and personal information of citizens has been leaked. It includes names, national ID card numbers, date of birth, home address and financial records. This is sensitive information and it going to the wrong hands can be very damaging for each citizen.

The database contained around 20.8 million people, which includes current as well as deceased citizens. This caused worry and panic for the citizens as their private information was not secure anymore. They must have disaster recovery backups to recover these problems. 

The breach was initially discovered by security researchers Noam Rotem and Ran Locar. A server, called Elasticsearch was discovered and was owned by a private company called Novaestrat.

Many notable individuals were also affected, including the President of Ecuador which forced the country to act immediately and smartly.

Apart from Novaestrat, the information was gathered through the country’s civil registry. The researchers were not able to reach the former registrar after several tries and were forced to reach out to the Ecuador CERT team (Computer Emergency Response Team). Upon receiving the news, they immediately shut down the database till further notice.

It is unclear whether they were able to recover the citizen’s data or not but if they had a proper backup and disaster recovery plan they would have easily recovered their data without having to worry about it getting lost.

How can a backup help?

With threats and breaches so common these days it is essential to have a backup plan in place. This acts as an insurance for your data and helps in recovery if anything is to happen to it.

There are many vendors who offer cloud backup disaster recovery services and offer exceptional features in reasonable rates. With a high competition, it is really easy to find a suitable vendor which suits you and your data best.

The main advantage of having a cloud backup is the ability to restore all your data in the event of a cyber-attack or breach. This way users can recover their files and gain access to them remotely. Depending on your vendor, you can opt for encryption and other security features such as ransomware or breach detection. This way you would know beforehand if there is a breach attempt and will deal with it before it actually happens. StoneFly offers such solutions in the most efficient and affordable way.

Conclusion

Data breaches and cyber-attacks are very common and it is best to be prepared for them beforehand, instead of waiting for an attack or breach to happen. Having a cloud backup enables users to back up their data and be worry free about cyber-attacks.

A Massachusetts City dodges ransomware demand after attack

A major ransomware attack was recently targeted on a Massachusetts City, New Bedford. The attackers demanded more than $5 million. This is one of the highest ransomware demand ever reported. The city announced that they would instead try to restore their data through backups and will recover whatever is possible instead of paying the ransom. 

Therefore you must have a backup and disaster recovery mechanism to be on the safer end.

If they had decided to pay the ransom, then this would have been the largest ransom money ever payed by anyone.

How it happened?

The MIS staff identified a computer virus attack on 5^th July 2019. It was a few later fully identified a ransomware attack. It happened in the early hours, before the employees began their day shift.

The staff has reported said that they have recovered most of the systems affected by the attack and daily services were not disrupted either because of the attack.

Negotiations

It is reported that the city officials made several attempts to negotiate the $5.3 million demand with the attackers but they did not accept. The last offer made by the officials was $400,000 which was also rejected by the attackers. To their dismay, the city officials decided to restore their systems manually without waiting or asking for the decryption key.

According to reports, about 4 percent of systems (158 computers to be exact) were affected by the attack. This is due to the fact that the staff immediately disconcerted the servers and shut down the systems before the attack could spread. This smart planning and decision making helped them to protect themselves from further damage.

It is unclear whether the city was able to fully recover all the data and systems affected but they reported that they were working on it and recovered their data and systems to some extent. This is a win for the tech community as it sends a message that there are other ways to deal with the problem, rather than paying ransom and giving in to these cyber thugs.

Even though the city saved themselves from paying the ransom they were still not able to fully recover all their data which can be critical as many companies and organizations have mission critical data and cannot afford to lose even 1% of it. This is where a backup and disaster recovery plan comes in.

Backup & Recovery Plan

If the city had a proper Cloud Backup and recovery plan in place they would have not worried about their data getting lost and wouldn’t have wasted time with negotiating with the attackers and risking to pay ransom to them. If they had a recovery plan they would have easily recovered their data in a matter of minutes. Veeam backup to azure can be used to backup your data.

There are many vendors who offers such services (for e,g, StoneFly’s DR365 & DR365V) and setting up a backup and recovery plan is as easy as ever.

Conclusion

Massachusetts City saved themselves from paying the largest amount of ransom ever demanded but on doing so they gambled highly with their data. The only safe and reliable way is to setup a backup & recovery plan and be prepared beforehand.

How do Changed Block Tracking (CBT) Backups Work

The backup appliance have become smarter with time. The increasing pressure of having less storage space and more data to accommodate, is resulting in innovative and efficient solutions such as CBT. The changed Block Tracking backup allows the system to take the backup of only those blocks of data which have undergone a change.

CBT does not Waste Storage Space

It reduces the amount of data as it does not copy that data which has remained the same. This offers smart usage of the storage capacity. It does not waste the space available for data storage on copying the data again and again.

CBT Saves Precious Time

In addition to consuming the storage space in a smart way, CBT also contributes in terms of saving time, which is very important part of a backup appliance’s role in the industry. Not making the copies of unnecessary and unchanged blocks of data saves time which would have made the process considerably slow.

In this type of a backup appliance which offers CBT, the entire data on the VM is not backed up which makes it a smarter way of backing up the data. This smarter backup needs an equally smart backup appliance such as DR 365 by StoneFly which offers this and many other features to make your experience worthwhile.   

When there is less amount to data to handle, it becomes easier to keep the relationship with the enterprises positive. The trust factor is not disturbed as you can provide them with faster and efficient data accessibility and recovery.

What does CBT Require?

Changed Block Tracking backup require some infrastructure to run. ESX/ESXi hosts are required for CBT to run and the version of these hosts must be 4.0 or recent to that. In addition to this, the Virtual Machines must be   of virtual hardware version 7 or latest. Veeam backup appliance is used for backup and replication as per your data need.

The CBT actually informs the vSphere or any other backup tool to copy only the blocks which have experienced some change, while not copying the ones which are the same. It does not unnecessarily copies the data to the backup which reduces the amount and time taken in the backup process.

Offers No or minimum Latency

By using CBT, a business can have minimum or no latency issues as only the data that needs to be backed up really is considered and rest of the data on the VM is ignored, there is no latency that is undesirable. We must keep it in mind that if there are so many blocks which have undergone changes, then there might be a little latency, this is why we have not mentioned no latency, just to be honest.

One major drawback of CBT is that it can miss out on the changes occurred to the data blocks during the hardware failure or any other kind of incident like power outage. Azure cloud backup can be used as data backup also.

Conclusion

Changed Block Tracking (CBT) is a type of data backup that really saves time and frees storage space. Both of these features are very crucial for modern backup appliances to have in them. A solution that offers this feature should be preferred as it provides the enterprise with optimum use of space storage and also that it does not waste time where it can be saved.