Last week saw a significant cyberattack on CloudNordic, a Denmark-based cloud service provider. The company has since issued a public statement confirming the unfortunate incident stemming from a ransomware attack, due to which they have seen complete deletion of all customer data from their servers.
The company website now redirects exclusively to their statement, apologizing to their current clients and promising that their team is working as hard as possible to rectify the current situation. The solutions to their current predicament, however, may not be as straightforward as if might appear.
As stated in interviews following the incident, the cyberattack corrupted not only the live servers but also all secondary servers as well as their backups. As a consequence, there is a real possibility that the data may not be retrievable.
Cybersecurity failures can lead to disaster
We have previously written on this blog about the importance of setting up your archive and backup correctly and ensuring it is used in such a way that your data remains safe. This includes taking measures such as airgapping correctly and isolating backups and archives from the live server as much as possible.
The two companies affected by the ransomware attack explain that despite all their machines having been protected by firewalls and antivirus software, some of their servers had been infected by malware before they were moved from one data center to another. As such, those that were previously on separate networks were wired to access the companies’ internal network, compromising the previous air gap.
Even worse, the system they were eventually connected to was one used by the companies to manage all their servers. The hackers were eventually able to use this to encrypt CloudNordic and AzeroCloud’s central administration and backups.
Should you be concerned about using the Cloud?
As companies massively migrate onto the Cloud, incidents like this are expected to become more common. Along with scale, the factor driving cybersecurity failures can largely be expected to be the same as in almost all other cases – simple user error.
According to Trend Micro’s (2021) analysis of data from the Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure cloud platforms, between 65 and 70% of all cloud security issues arise from security misconfigurations. There can be a variety of reasons behind this, ranging from unfamiliarity with the Cloud service providers’ (CSP) security controls to a misplaced reliance on the CSP to arrange all security themselves.
Like with all other security matters, one of the key aspects to ensuring your own data safety and business continuity is maintaining a well-configured archive or backup, set up in such a way as to be isolated from the main server as much as possible. Cybersecurity is above all else a question of layered redundancy, and ensuring that your disaster mitigation strategy is prepared to address small failures in outer layers as they arise.
A crucial part of your company’s security is an archive and backup
As we have covered previously on this blog, one of the key ways to mitigate dangers presented by cybersecurity threats is preparing a Disaster Recovery plan for your business. Of the steps outlined by most Disaster Recovery guides, the first and most key aspect is protecting critical business data behind an archive or backup system.
As is made entirely too obvious by the CloudNordic and AzeroCloud attacks, backups are not foolproof; having an archive and backup solution in place is not a guarantee of immediate security for your files and requires continued care, maintenance, and administration. At the same time, as evidenced by countless cyberattacks that were successfully mitigated, backups represent a key and irreplaceable layer of protection.
Protect your critical business data with contentACCESS
Our contentACCESS archive and backup solution has a proven history of helping our customers through their disaster recovery or operational complications. Data stored in contentACCESS can be isolated from the live system and kept safe from alteration, deletion or malevolent encryption – whether accidental or deliberate, and whether coming from an external or internal source. Additionally, the system is flexible and adaptive – you can install our solution locally on your servers, on the Cloud, or as a hybrid of the two.
The unified contentACCESS system can capture and store a wide slice of your critical data including communications through email or Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Sharepoint storage, or flies stored elsewhere. And with all of the above accessible through the same system, you and your employees can continue working with your archived files through Outlook plug-ins, secure web access, or through our mobile app on the move.
Is your company prepared for potential hazards? If not, are you ready to take the next step needed to ensure your business’s continuity? If so, contact us! Our team of experts has combined decades of experience in the industry and is ready and waiting to help you leverage them for continued success. Schedule a free consultation now and we can go over how to best meet your company’s needs.
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