CLOUD BACKUP
Back it up With more businesses now using cloud, backing it up effectively is becoming ever-more important, especially with cyberthreats continuing to grow. Resellers must ensure customers understand the risks and adopt the most effective solutions.
Cloud adoption is now widespread among businesses of all sizes and, while it brings many benefits, there are nevertheless dangers too, which businesses – and the resellers and vendors that work with them – must be alert to. One danger is the cloud backup being compromised, which means protecting them is crucial – and there are many threats out there. Richard May, CEO of virtualDCS, says that ransomware is probably the most significant threat to businesses' cloud backups. “Attackers encrypt local data and then try to target all sources of a free recovery by also encrypting second copies,” he says. “This means that these copies must be held immutable so they cannot be changed or destroyed.” Paul Speciale, chief marketing officer at Scality, agrees that ransomware remains the leading cyber threat. “Attacks are increasing in sophistication and frequency in the cloud,” he says. “While immutable storage remains an absolute must-have capability, attackers will focus on soft- targets – human admins and end users, to acquire cloud account access credentials where backups are stored. For this reason, cloud backup is still best used as a second or third backup copy along with fast on-premises backup storage, making it harder for attackers to destroy backups on multiple sites.” Ian Stretton, head of practice for Infrastructure, Modern Work & Security at Infinity Group, agrees that human errors like misconfigurations or weak credentials can leave backups vulnerable, alongside natural disasters or outages at the cloud provider's end. “With the threats being so far-reaching
and unpredictable, it’s crucial to have robust protections in place,” he says. Anton Shelepchuk, VP of Worldwide Sales, NAKIVO, notes that the high accessibility provided by cloud can also leave an organisation vulnerable to scenarios such as a disgruntled employee gaining access to company data and deleting files, which could only be recoverable from backups. “One of the most common causes of business data loss is the accidental deletion of data,” he adds. Awareness While there are weaknesses such as those above, there is another that businesses aren’t always aware of: that software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions don’t necessarily come with comprehensive backup too. Stew Parkin, global CTO, at Assured Data Protection, adds that there are many preconceptions about cloud data backup. “The main one being that once critical data resides in the cloud it is safe and secure, and backed up automatically by the cloud provider,” he says. “Unfortunately, that simply isn’t the case, unless you’ve made specific provisions for this.” Richard adds: “Many businesses using SaaS solutions may not be fully aware that cloud providers typically focus on uptime and availability, but they do not provide comprehensive backup solutions. “Microsoft themselves publicise their shared responsibility model, which states the customer is responsible for all data and system configuration. This means the move to the cloud has not removed
Richard May CEO
virtualdcs.co.uk
Paul Speciale chief marketing officer
scality.com
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