According to the company, Zerto 10 offers a new replication architecture for scale-out efficiency and native protection of Azure Virtual Machines. In addition, it provides new support for multi-disk consistency for VMs in Microsoft Azure to help protect data both to and from Azure as well as across Azure regions within the cloud, the company says.

The company says Zerto 10 coordinates replication across all the virtual disks associated with a virtual machine in Azure to maintain data consistency for failover and recovery. The new cloud-based architecture is designed to enable easier scale out to “thousands of VMs,” reduce management complexity and enable data movers to scale out or back based on I/O levels between production and disaster recovery to, from or within Azure.

Specifically, Zerto 10 includes a new tool for ransomware resilience and real-time detection of encryption, which  monitors and reports on encryption as data streams in and can detect anomalous activity “within minutes” to alert users of suspicious activity.

According to the company, a new Zerto Cyber Resilience Vault is an air-gapped recovery vault designed to bring another layer of security with a real-time early warning system built on three pillars: replicate and detect, isolate and lock, and test and recover.

According to Zerto, combined with the vault’s zero trust architecture, the pillars enable rapid air-gapped recovery in a highly secure environment, allowing enterprises to architect and customize a recover vault to help mitigate ransomware attacks.

Zerto 10 also offers the new Linux-based Zerto Virtual Manager Appliance, a new tool that replaces the legacy Windows-based Virtual Manager designed to be easier to deploy, secure and maintain as part of regular Zerto product updates. Upgrading from legacy ZVMs will have their existing settings be migrated to the new appliance, the company says.

Zerto for Microsoft Azure will be available in the Azure Marketplace in July.

The post Zerto Launches Zerto 10 for Enhanced Disaster Recovery, Ransomware Mitigation appeared first on My TechDecisions.

The research, “The state of Ransomware and Disaster Preparedness: 2022,” suggests that ransomware and other data-related business disruptions have plagued many businesses over the last year.

Specifically, 61% of such incidents were the result of a ransomware attack or other malware, with 60% of organizations reporting that their data was unrecoverable due to the attack. According to Zerto, that’s a sharp increase from the 43% who reported lost data a year ago.

Zerto’s report, in conjunction with research firm IDC, found that organizations surveyed saw an average of 19.3 cyberattacks of all types, and 2.3 ransomware attacks within the last year. However, 93% of organizations said they suffered a data-related business disruption during that time, and more than two-thirds said they had four or more such disruptions.

Of the organizations that reported being attacked in the last year, 83% said at least one attack resulted in the corruption of data, with 60% saying that data was unrecoverable.

Read Next: Your Guide to Business Continuity Planning

Zerto’s report suggests that the proliferation of apps and the software-as-a-service economy is making the effort to keep data always available more difficult, with more than 80% of new applications being deployed in the cloud or at the edge.

In the report, IDC predicts that 55% of organizations will have adopted a cloud-centric data protection strategy by 2025, and enterprise data protection and disaster recovery will be managed from the cloud.

However, most organizations lack confidence in their current backup and disaster recovery solutions, as less than 30% said they were not fully confident in their ability to recover data from backup or with a disaster recovery tool.

The report suggests the importance of Continuous Data Protection (CDP) and its ability to reduce the potential for data loss and cut down the recovery time. Zerto notes that CDP captures data changes as they are written, reducing recovery time and virtually eliminating the “backup gap.”

“With many new applications being deployed at the core, cloud, and edge, IT organizations are facing ever-increasing complexity in providing data protection and DR,” said Caroline Seymour, vice president of product marketing at Zerto, in a statement. “By using CDP to return to a point just seconds or minutes prior to an attack or any disruption, recoveries can be made quickly and with minimal data loss, especially when combined with recovery orchestration and automation.”

The post Do You Trust Your Disaster Recovery Solution? appeared first on My TechDecisions.

The majority of respondents to the company’s survey say their organization’s innovation is reactive as opposed to proactive.

Perhaps the underlying reason for what some call the Great Resignation, the survey also found that organizations have largely focused on customer satisfaction, and only 16% named employee retention and engagement as a priority, according to NTT.

Further, just 21% of executives say flexible working options is a top contributor to employee satisfaction, which conflicts with countless studies that have shown employees would consider leaving a job that didn’t offer flexible work arrangements.

Cybersecurity was also a recurring topic in the research, being one of the most identified solutions to minimize potential disruptions from bad actors and safeguard new ways of working.

Read Next: Your Guide to Business Continuity Planning

Executives also indicated that cybersecurity, along with IoT and robotic process automation (RPA), are the top technologies they believe will most help to solve challenges facing society.

Nearly all respondents said they have implemented cybersecurity technologies in at least some areas of their business, but just about half think they are effective at preventing data breaches.

According to NTT, the research highlights the benefits of innovation and data-drive technologies for financial performance, customer satisfaction, workforce productivity and employee retention, but just 43% of executives say innovation is mission-critical, and 42% say it’s a nice-to-have.

The 6% of respondents that report above average performance in nearly all areas of their organization also claim a higher productivity rate at 53% compared to the survey’s average of 34%. That group, according to NTT, has reported a focus on data-driven decision making, employee and customer experience and leveraging new technologies.

Erick Clark, chief digital officer of NTT Data Services, said in a statement that the pandemic has left a mark on many organizations.

“When times are uncertain, it is a natural response to tighten budgets and focus on short-term goals that bring revenue, but this comes at the expense of innovation and future goals,” Clark said. “Leaders must focus on identifying the effective digital technologies that allow them to quickly scale resources, support remote work and respond to market pressures while prioritizing employee retention.”

The post Research: 77% of IT, Business Execs Aren’t Prepared For Disaster appeared first on My TechDecisions.

Nobody in the office could get into ConnectWise or Kaseya, and soon after, calls came in from clients about their machines acting crazy and files popping up on their screens.

When Tipton got back to the office, he noticed a ransom note on a screen and started immediately shutting down machines. “I knew at that point a little bit of what was going on, but not the full details of how many people were hit. At first, I thought it was just us,” he told MJ Shoer, Executive Director, COMPTIA ISAO in a video interview, “and that’s the worst feeling you’ll ever have.”

Related: Kaseya Confirms Sophisticated Cyberattack Over The Holiday Weekend

In his career, he’s never lost any client data, and in that moment, his worst fear was unfolding. The days following the attack, Tipton was working about 20 hours each day helping to re-store data and get his clients’ systems back up.

The Emotional Toll

He recalls being physically nauseous, unable to eat for days, and having to remove himself from coordinating the aftermath of the attack. “I couldn’t do it,” he said. “I was too close to it, I had too much emotional ties to what was going on.”

He told his office staff to run with the disaster recovery plan, so he could prioritize getting medical clients back up and running. “You just become self-aware of what you can’t do,” he says, “and it’s not because I didn’t want to — mentally, I couldn’t prioritize things, I kept jumbling up the list of what had to get done,” he told Shoer.

Fortunately, Technology Specialist, who manages around 60 clients under MSP contract, many of which are longtime clients, were able to recover all of its managed clients’ data.

Many clients were understanding and that there was nothing Technology Specialist could have done to stop this. “Nothing is 100% safe anymore,” said Tipton.

The company had some issues restoring data, “part of it had to do with download speeds because everybody was trying to hit data centers at the same time, but luckily some clients, we were just backing up their files, like their QuickBooks off-site, and that’s all they were really concerned about,” he said.

Tipton found out the hackers came in through a form and injected a malicious code into the system. “The system took it and ran with it, and being a computer, it’s not going to care what the code tells it to do, it’s just going to do it.”

Lessons Learned from the Kaseya Attack

Since the attack, Tipton is changing the way the company is backing up clients’ data. He also is changing his disaster recovery plan, especially how it’s stored – the attack left him without access to the file on his computer and on other server locations where it was stored.

It took the company almost 36 hours to get its password vault restored. Paper printouts of recovery plans and passwords are some things he noted changing.

Tipton was grateful and overwhelmed by the outpouring of support he received from the IT community. He ex-business partner came in to help, people donated servers, and even clients pitched in to help not only get their company back up, but other clients as well.

The Kaseya attack was not just an attack on MSPs, but the entire IT community.

The post The Emotional Toll Of A Cyber Attack appeared first on My TechDecisions.

My TechDecisions sat down with GRA Quantum’s Chief Information Security Officer Antonio Garcia to learn more about the portfolio of cybersecurity services the company offers, how they achieved greater control and visibility over their own public cloud deployment with data loss and response platforms, and why it’s important for them to try their partners’ software solutions before they sell them to customers.

TD: What are some of the biggest concerns your customers are facing in today’s business environment?

Antonio: The causes for today’s security threats involve people as much as the digital and physical limits of software solutions. Right now, businesses are in the midst of a significant shift as more organizations move critical data into public clouds to reap the many benefits of data loss detection and response platforms.

The downside to this rapid shift is that documents containing sensitive information are moving to the cloud faster than businesses can protect them.

This puts organizations at greater risk. Users are not following security policies or paying attention to the potential security dangers of sharing data from a public cloud. This is causing some anxiety for the security and risk professionals charged with protecting data and keeping companies in compliance with data privacy regulations.

They’re well aware that once files are downloaded from a public cloud and forwarded to outside users, they have lost the ability to protect that information from unsanctioned users.

TD: Could you tell us more about GRA Quantum? Who are your customers and how do you help them?

Antonio: GRA Quantum helps small firms facing big threats build and implement tailored cybersecurity programs that protect their business and reputation.

We offer managed security services and an array of professional services, including penetration testing, security risk assessments, incident response, insider threat planning, security awareness training.

TD: How do you select which technology vendors will be part of your portfolio of solutions?

Antonio: As a provider of cybersecurity services, GRA Quantum takes the trust of its customers and their security infrastructure very seriously. These things go hand-in-hand when it comes to selecting technology to use and sell.

A majority of the technology solutions we sell to our clients are the same ones we use and rely on to protect our business. We wouldn’t promote or endorse anything we hadn’t used or weren’t completely confident in.

TD: Can you give us an example of a solution you used that you now recommend to your clients?

Antonio: Our team was in need of additional visibility and control over documents stored in our Microsoft OneDrive deployment across our global GRA offices.

We started using the Allure Security, a data loss detection and response platform, internally.

In a short amount of time, it gave us a greater understanding of OneDrive use in various locations. We were able to monitor document access, in real time, and know where and when documents were being downloaded and shared.

We gained a lot more visibility into user and file activities, and can better inform our data loss responses based on Allure’s unique document and geolocation indicators.

TD: Why is this important to know?

Antonio: For global organizations like ours, it is becoming increasingly vital to have more control over where data travels due to data privacy regulations such as GDPR and others.

It’s also just good business to add more controls around data stored in public clouds. Having more context around where and how documents are being shared allows us to establish a baseline of normal behavior within our OneDrive deployment.

We can then monitor and measure against that baseline, so when unusual behavior is detected, we can drill down into that and determine if there’s a risk of data loss.

For example, with the ability to know when large volumes of files are being downloaded, by whom, and where these documents are being sent, we can determine whether a data breach has occurred or it’s just a matter of a user needing these files to do their work.

TD: Is “alert fatigue” or information overload ever a concern when using solutions like this?

Antonio: With the Allure data loss and response platforms, we were able to configure data loss risk monitoring based on specific criteria. Our deployment is set up to only issue alerts whenever a document was accessed in a location or region where GRA Quantum has no office.

For other regions, we only receive alerts when an attempt to access a document falls outside of our company security policy.

Using these criteria, the team rarely receives false positive alerts, but even in these cases, they are not a waste of time to investigate. For example, we received an alert that a GRA administrative assistant who was working in the United States opened a file in the Philippines.

Read Next: Data Breach Incident Response Plan: 6 Essential Steps

We don’t have an office there, so once we saw the alert about this potentially unusual activity, we made a few calls and learned that this individual user had utilized a VPN with an IP address in the Philippines to access the file. It was reassuring to know that Allure was able to detect the activity, and it gave us peace of mind to be able to quickly determine that this wasn’t an attack.

TD: How does this solution differ from other security tools that you rely on?

Antonio: Anyone who manages or secures a OneDrive cloud instance is familiar with something called a cloud activity log. Security operations teams comb through these logs and look for any suspicious user behavior, but the difference is that Allure is able to flag and escalate any unusual activity ahead of time.

In the example I talked about earlier involving the VPN in the Philippines, our Managed Security Services Director actually checked for this activity in our raw Microsoft logs, and found that the event was incredibly difficult to locate. Allure was able to alert us to activity that would have otherwise been buried.

TD: Aside from the effectiveness and usability of a software solution, what are some other factors that help GRA Quantum when evaluating partner vendors?

Antonio: Once we have personally experienced the benefits of using a data loss and response platforms solution, we look at other deciding factors, such as the responsiveness of the vendor. What kind of support can they provide after the sale?

In this case, Allure’s detection and response technology inspired us to become a partner and now, we resell it to our clients. In addition to having great technology, Allure is also a true partner. They are receptive to our product feedback.

They listen to our needs and ideas, and are incorporating some of our suggestions directly into the product. In my view, our sales and support team can better position solutions than some of our competitors because everything we sell has gone through our own internal review.

It gives us the confidence to stand behind our data loss and response platforms recommendations to clients, because we are customers, too.

The post Q&A: An Opinion on Data Loss Detection and Response Platforms appeared first on My TechDecisions.

The first thing in disaster recovery is backups.  Your data has to be backed up and protected off-site.  Without this step, all the subsequent steps will be fruitless since you will have no data to work off of.

In the early days of data protection it was sufficient enough to have your data backups sitting right next to your server or in a safe located on-site.  This is no longer the case.  The data must reside outside of the organization and preferably in the cloud.

The best way to achieve this is to use a business continuity device.  With a business continuity device your data is backed up to the device and then it’s automatically pushed to the cloud.  This ensures that you have both a local copy and cloud copy of your data.

The next step is to designate at least two point people.  The purpose of this role is when disaster strikes the people in your organization need to know who to contact. These designated people will have contact information for all the pertinent vendors and will also be able to instruct others on what the next steps in your protocol will be.

Bringing up protocol brings us to the next step. Make sure that you have a written protocol plan.  You need to know where you will tell people to go.  Do you have a second location?  Do employees stay at home and await further instructions?  You should document everything that will need to take place if such an event occurs.

Most disaster situations take place when there is a physical issue at your location where your data is kept and stored. Whether it be a power outage, flooding, hurricane, tornado or some other natural disaster these all fit the bill.  This is not to say that other situations can’t fit the bill such as human error, a ransomware attack or a successful hack.

Protect your data, have designated people ready for action, and have a fully documented process in place. Communication is your friend and you need to make sure that you can properly disseminate information with those in your organization during a time of crisis.

The post Is Your Organization Properly Prepared for Disaster Recovery? appeared first on My TechDecisions.

At its most basic, backup is the process of copying computer files and folders, as well as images of entire machines, and storing them for retrieval at a later date, should there be a hardware failure, data breach or other disruption to a business.

“If you need to go back six months to find out what your accounting data looked like – that is a backup problem,” says Jamie A. Stapleton, CEO of Computer Business Solutions, a provider of IT services based in Ashland, Va.

Disaster recovery, on the other hand, is typically more comprehensive in that it may utilize backup data to systematically recover and restore an organization’s IT infrastructure in order to restore operations within a certain timeframe.

“With disaster recovery, you usually want to start recovery with the most recent data set,” Stapleton says.

Both backup and disaster recovery operations are key to business continuity – a complex process that may involve the ability to failover an organization’s entire IT infrastructure to maintain business operations in the event of a longer term disruption.

Historically, organizations would backup a single machine using a single piece of software, and store backup data to a tape, optical media or other such physical means. The stored data would then be kept offsite, and retrieved from that site when needed, a process that could require rebuilding affected hardware by reinstalling operating systems and applications. Sending data via a wide area network to another location was another mode of offsite backup that could potentially degrade network performance.

The traditional way of backing up data and accessing it for disaster recovery purposes has shortcomings that make it increasingly inadequate for today’s fast-paced and networked business environment.

For starters, tape-based backups typically require human intervention, if not to start the backup process itself then at least to change the tape and move it offsite. Once offsite, the tape is stored at a physical location; time was needed to retrieve the physical medium just to be able to begin the restore process. All told, traditional BDR is a time-consuming process.

“With virtualization, backup can now go to the cloud,” Stapleton says. “One of the big advantages to cloud-based backup and recovery is that you can start server workloads in the cloud, which will bring your recovery time objectives very close to zero.”

Backup and Disaster Recovery in the Cloud

The BDR market is growing, thanks in part to the cloud. According to market research firm IDC, data backup and recovery software racked up $6.4 billion in revenues in 2015, with a projected compound annual growth rate of 5.6% through 2020. One of the drivers for this growth is the cloud and its ability to enable a second copy of data to be kept and accessed at another location. Given the size of the market, there are dozens of vendors in the space.

“A full software suite from Veeam or an all-in-one storage backup disaster recovery appliance from Datto are very attractive options for a lot of SMBs,” says Chris Messer, senior vice president of technology at Coretelligent, a provider of managed IT and private cloud services in Westwood, Mass. These vendors are representative of a number of vendors that appeal specifically to SMBs including Dell Rapid Recovery, Intronis and Unitrends among others.

BDR utilizing the cloud can reduce both the time needed to restore systems as well as the level of human intervention required throughout the process. While there are myriad ways to set up cloud BDR, essentially files and folders as well as server images (that contain operating systems, applications and settings) are copied and stored in the cloud for retrieval, a process that can be handled either via a software only approach. an appliance approach or a combination of the two. With virtualization, the recovery process itself can be significantly streamlined – data as well as complete virtual environments can be brought online within minutes.

As president of managed services provider CMIT Solutions of Seattle, Jeff Steele devotes much of his time discussing BDR with clients. As a small business owner, Steele knows firsthand how the cloud facilitates quick data recovery.

When traveling for business, Steele’s laptop unexpectedly failed. Facing a week in which he needed to access email, accounting and other applications needed to run his business, Steele contacted his BDR provider Datto; his system files were recovered within 30 minutes.  Using a web browser and some requisitioned hardware, Steele had access to all the data and applications he needed. (Accessing restored data via a portal or web browser is standard). When he returned to his office, the data he worked on was automatically updated via a networked appliance he installed and pushed to a new laptop.

The secret sauce to quick recovery is virtualization.

The post How to Handle Backup and Disaster Recovery in the Cloud appeared first on My TechDecisions.

ReadyNAS 4360X is powered by the company’s ReadyNAS OS, now in version 6.7, which enables a flexible RAID configuration for performance, reliability, and capacity optimization by offering RAID 0, 1, 10, 5, 6, 50, and 60 options. The new ReadyNAS OS 6.7 provides new capabilities such as synchronization with public cloud storage services including Amazon S3, Amazon Cloud Drive, Google Drive, and Dropbox. It also expands capacity of ReadyNAS Rackmount models already on the market —ReadyNAS 3312, ReadyNAS 4312S, and ReadyNAS 4312X—by two EDA2000 (12-bay) or EDA4000 (24-bay) expansion chassis.

The ReadyNAS 4360X is built to keep up with the demands of high workload virtualization and applications with an Intel Xeon E3-1225v5 Quad Core 3.3GHz Processor, along with 16GB of DDR4 with ECC expandable to 64GB. The storage solution is equipped with four 1G Base-T ports and two 10 gigabit per second network interfaces, either 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) copper (RR4360X model) or 10 Gigabit SFP+ (RR4360S model).

ReadyNAS 4360X is housed in a rackmount 4U chassis offering SAS or SATAIII selectable hard disk drive interface. Its three built-in SAS interfaces can connect to three ReadyNAS EDA2000 12-bay or EDA4000 24-bay expansion chassis. Fully loaded, the storage solution offers a 132-bay single node network storage solution.

The new ReadyNAS 4U 60-bay 10GbE Rackmount Network Storage (RR4360X) is now available. For pricing and availability, visit www.netgear.com.

This article was originally posted on sister publication ChannelPro Network.

The post NETGEAR Delivers High Density Network Storage Solution appeared first on My TechDecisions.

Part One – Simple File Backups

You are probably doing this today; copying files to disc or tape. You might know where all critical data is, you might remember to add new data, and you might have a couple of weeks of backups.

But what if something critical is not in your backup set? What if you needed to recover a file deleted six months ago? What if you need to recover a day of work at 4 pm, and your most recent backup was last night?

Modern backups are snapshot based (capturing data and network configuration, including users and groups, file permissions, and everything else that makes your network unique). And modern backups happen frequently, so you can recover data recently created.

Your complete backup plan should be based on snapshotting technology, providing frequent protection of your data and network configuration.

Part Two – True Business Continuity

Now let’s consider what might happen if your server failed today.

Imagine waiting a week for that new server, only to find the nightmare of downtime isn’t over yet. After all, your network isn’t just your data, it is also the unique and complex configuration of your business, your user accounts, your data files and their layout on the server, permissions, policies, printing, and more.

This can take days to recreate. The answer is to build a comprehensive backup plan around snapshot technology that writes to a local device that can stand in for your server in the case of a server failure. With this in place you can instantly recover from the loss of a server in minute to hours, not days to weeks.

Your complete backup plan should be designed to limit downtime to hours, not days, providing True Business Continuity.

Part Three – True Disaster Recovery

First think about the common threats such as ransomware, employee errors and hardware failure, and then next the rare stuff, such as fires, floods, fires, thefts, maybe or earthquakes, hurricanes, or tornadoes in your area.

There is a lot to protect against. Even with your files backed up online, you will still need to run your business while you await your replacement server, and then get your network setup and data restored.

Simply copying your data off-site is not the complete answer you need to recover from a site disaster, as that doesn’t provide you a backup server, only your data, if you’re lucky. Your backup plan has to include the ability to recover from both common and rare disasters.

Your complete backup plans should protect against even a site disaster by providing for True Disaster Recovery.

Tying it All Together

A complete backup plan has to provide for recovery of data lost an hour or months ago, against a ransomware attack, a failed server, or even a complete site disaster. And it has to do this within minutes or hours, not days or weeks.

Health insurance won’t keep you healthy, and life insurance won’t keep you alive, but a complete data backup plan will keep your business alive and healthy.

The post The Three Parts of a Complete Backup and Disaster Recovery Plan appeared first on My TechDecisions.

Cybersecurity is quickly becoming the most important factor of any company’s network. In 2017, the question is no longer if we’ll be hacked, but when.

That’s why it’s so important to back up information and have a set plan to recover it in the unfortunate instance of a cyberattack.

The first step is in understanding the terms surrounding this topic. Luckily, SingleHop created a glossary of popular terms related to disaster recovery:

The post Glossary Explains All Disaster Recovery Terms appeared first on My TechDecisions.