How to Check if your SAN Solution will Survive a Ransomware Attack?
July 12, 2023
A ransomware attack is one of the most common and dangerous types of cyber attacks. It involves the encryption of the victim’s data, which is then held for ransom, leading to lost data, operational downtime, and reputational damage. Meanwhile, storage area network (SAN) play an important role in enterprise IT infrastructure, providing a centralized storage solution for all enterprise data. With this in mind, it is crucial to ensure that your SAN solution can withstand a ransomware attack. This blog post outlines the steps you must take to check whether your SAN solution will survive a ransomware attack.
Determine SAN Security Measures
The first step in ensuring that your SAN solution survives a ransomware attack is to examine your SAN security measures. SAN security encompasses various measures that can protect your SAN from external or internal attacks. Therefore, ensure to regularly audit your SAN security mechanism, conduct security awareness sessions for users and administrators, and follow industry best practices to ensure that your SAN is fully protected against attacks.
Check the Role of Your Backup Solution
A backup solution plays a crucial role in ensuring the viability of your SAN solution when a ransomware attack occurs. Frequently check your backup system to ensure it performs a complete backup of all enterprise data. Additionally, examine your backup frequency and location of the backup copies to guarantee that both are aligned with industry standards and best practices.
Test Disaster Recovery Plan
As previously mentioned, implementing a robust backup strategy is necessary. However, it should be augmented by a well-planned disaster recovery (DR) plan. It is crucial to test your disaster recovery plan frequently, as an untested DR plan is as good as pointless. Make sure all stakeholders leverage DR testing, including IT teams, vendors, and business partners, to troubleshoot and resolve DR-related issues.
Implement Endpoint Security
Endpoint devices, including laptops, mobile devices, and USB sticks, are particularly vulnerable to ransomware attacks. Your enterprise security strategy should ensure that all endpoints are secured through an enterprise-grade endpoint protection solution. This includes antivirus, malware prevention, and firewall solutions.
Update Your Software Regularly
Software updates are an essential component of every enterprise’s security strategy. This is because, as hackers come up with new attack methods, software publishers frequently release patches to close security holes in their software. Therefore, ensure your SAN software is up to date. As a result, you will secure your SAN by staying ahead of hackers.
Make sure you have Air-Gap Protection
An air-gap is a physical barrier that separates an organization’s internal network from the public internet, ensuring that hackers cannot access the enterprise IT infrastructure. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure your SAN has some form of air-gap protection in place. This will help protect your SAN against ransomware attacks and other cyber threats.
Immutability is Key
Finally, check whether your SAN solution has the option of enabling immutability. This feature allows you to create a write-protected environment in which data can’t be modified or deleted without proper authentication. Therefore, it is crucial for protecting your data from ransomware attacks and other cyber threats.
SAN Solution with Ransomware Protection Features is a Must
Ensuring that your SAN solution will survive a ransomware attack requires more than simply installing endpoint security and creating an air-gap. Your enterprise must invest in SAN solutions with advanced ransomware protection features, such as immutability and secure backup capabilities. This will provide the best chance of keeping your data safe from cyber threats.
Summary
In summary, a ransomware attack can have devastating consequences, including the loss of data and operational downtime. To ensure your SAN solution survives such an attack, establish a comprehensive security strategy that includes endpoint security, regular software updates, backup solutions with DR plans for testing, air-gap protection, and immutability to protect data from being modified or deleted. Investing in SAN solutions with advanced ransomware protection features is the best way to ensure your SAN solution’s survivability.
Contact SAN solution experts today such as StoneFly to ensure your SAN solution is safe from ransomware attacks. And if not, then its best to get a reliable SAN solution.
StoneFly’s SAN storage solutions are designed to keep your data safe and secure.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
George Williams, Senior Technical & Product Marketing Specialist, StoneFly Inc.
George Williams has over 13 years of experience in the data storage, backup and disaster recovery, air-gapping, immutability and archiving markets. A true geek with love for ease and simplicity in data storage, George has been working for StoneFly Inc. for over a decade. Ever since StoneFly started shipping products since 2006, George has been working to ensure that technical information is relayed in a simple and effective way to customers and targeted audience. George helps curate content and works with numerous publishers and technology blogs to spread awareness and knowledge of data storage technology.
