FEATURE
for and can damage organisations for
years after the event.
Cyberattacks continue to dominate the
headlines, so it was no surprise that
a recent report from the Department
for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
revealed that the number of active
cybersecurity firms in the UK has
increased 44% from 2017, making the
UK’s booming cybersecurity sector
worth £8.3 billion. In an ever-evolving
world of threats, while preventative
A meaningful
security posture
starts with
preventative security
measures and a
defensive in-depth
data protection
strategy.
measures are essential, much more
is needed to properly protect an
organisation’s critical data from
malicious activity. For example, what
happens once an attack has been
successful? As was seen in the recent
ransomware attacks on Travelex which
forced staff to use pen and paper, it can
take weeks to get business processes
back up and running.
One of the most concerning outcomes of
a cyberattack is the compromise of data.
Multinational manufacturers and US city
and county governments parted with
more than US$176 million responding to
the biggest ransomware attacks of 2019,
spending on everything from rebuilding
networks and restoring from backups,
to paying the hacker’s ransom. Top of
the list was the attack on the Danish
hearing aid manufacturer, Demant, which
resulted in recovery and mitigation costs
estimated between US$80–95 million.
Starting off on the right foot
A meaningful security posture starts
with preventative security measures and
a defensive in-depth data protection
strategy. From leveraging server and
desktop malware protections to teaching
employees, contractors and vendors
about social engineering tactics and
malicious email phishing campaigns
that find their way into an organisation’s
data. Having strict systems access
protocols already in place to ensure only
authorised personnel can access data is
of utmost importance too, so that no one
has similar ability to compromise both
production and backup data.
However, even with the most robust
protection capabilities, successful
attacks on data are a reality. Backups
are an integral part of protecting
production data. They focus on ensuring
organisations are ready to recover the
IT environment and data in case of a
Disaster Recovery situation. They also
enable the ability to recover a file if it is
corrupted due to a hardware or software
failure. However, recovering data after
a successful cyberattack presents
a much more complex challenge, so
organisations need to enhance their data
backup strategy, capabilities and plans
to significantly improve their odds of
effectively responding. Failure to do so
jeopardises the likelihood of a successful
and timely data recovery effort.
38 Issue 27 | www.intelligentciso.com