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Air-Gap: A Cybersecurity Benefit

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Of course, magnetic tape is an old technology but the simple reason of being old does not make it ineffective or impractical to use in the modern data center. Many would dare to say, magnetic tape is so retro its totally new again. I am inclined to believe that. Why? For one, the most modern data centers, called hyper-scalers, are leveraging the use of magnetic tape and cost-efficiency for such large magnitudes of data. For the rest of us, it mainly has to do with the cybersecurity benefit of air-gapping a backup copy.

I recently did a webinar where I teamed up with one of Quantum’s IT managers to discuss mainly what his IT organization did to protect against Ransomware. (If you missed, see here: Ransomware Webinar ).  Maybe for some it felt like it was a pitch for tape coming from a company that owns more than 30% of the tape market, but the reality is that we have seen and heard from many companies how air-gapping a backup copy truly became the best last line of defense against the nemesis of Ransomware. Plus, if we didn’t use the solution ourselves, would you really buy it from us?

When your organization was saved multiple millions of dollars because you stored a backup copy of your asset or last week’s data on tape and saved the most precious intangible commodity of time, creativity and effort plus the tangible ones like new data of new customer acquisitions, market intelligence and new product analysis you too would also say, damn tape is freakin’ awesome. Ransomware, due to the patience and tenacity of the criminals behind it, can sit and pause for any length of time inspecting your network from a distance until they discover a way to bypass your security. This is not to say, that the cybersecurity software in the market today aren’t amazing solutions, but if we’ve learned something it is that cyber-criminals are tenaciously patient and very hungry to be rewarded. This is why, air-gap is the best last line of defense. Working together with cybersecurity software, SDDs, flash and replication technology as data moves from a hot to cold status, air-gapping becomes very cost-effective and the best way to store long-term data.  In no way, are we saying replace your ultra-speeds that SSDs or flash offer in a back-up scenario, but rather include an air-gap backup copy on magnetic tape in the event you find your network connected devices compromised by ransomware. The enterprise backup environment is being hit hard by these vile characters and you don’t want to be caught by surprise.

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Tape Storage – a Proactive Layer of Protection Against Ransomware

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As we close out another year, cyberattacks like ransomware continue to be top of mind for many organizations. We expect it to be top of mind in 2020 and beyond as organizations make investments in the latest technology. With all the energy and spend going towards new technology and cybersecurity efforts, I can’t help but wonder what continues to give these cyber adversaries the upper hand? I’d be naïve to say that profit isn’t a huge motivator because there is a straight line from development to profit. It is a well-known fact that these intrusions are expected to yield more than just profits when they cripple your systems, they seek to yield the grand prize – your company secrets, your data is the currency of choice. An article published by Tech Republic states, “Cybercriminals are searching for higher returns on their investment, and they can reap serious benefits from ransoming organizations over individuals, who might yield, at best, a few personal files that could be used for extortion or identity theft.”

A backup strategy is important to overall protection

Backups are a critical component to your overall protection strategy. Is all your critical information being backed up. Is it being stored offline? Has the backup strategy implemented been tested to ensure it works? The FBI has recommendations for ransomware preventions and responses fo r CEOs. It is not a surprise to see that the first answer to the question of ho w to protect your network was Backups.

Tape storage: Your last line of defense

We have learned that ransomware seeks and attacks known vulnerabilities in the
network, where data on servers, storage, and everything else connected to it
will most likely be compromised. For your data to be truly protected, we recommend
an offline or airgap copy in your backup strategy that works in conjunction
with your security software, hard disk drives (HDD), and cloud storage.

Because tape storage is an ‘offline’ storage technology, it provides
effective protection against ransomware and malware. Tape is your last line of
defense—simply because criminals can’t delete or encrypt what they can’t access
over the network. To fully protect your data against ransomware, prevent the
infection in the first place, and then perform regular backups, replicating
data to off-site and offline media such as tape.

Tape offers high-speed restore rates

Not only is tape storage cost-effective, but it offers high-speed restore rates, currently with LTO-8 generation it has an up to 750MBps transfer rate. That makes it ideal for both storing large volumes of data over the long term, as well as protecting your assets. Although replication technologies can provide faster restores, let’s remember they do not protect from ransomware.

Make tape part of your backup and DR strategy

Given the prevalence of ransomware attacks, you need a strategy for
defending your files against these debilitating events. We’ve seen state and
local governments, educational institutions, and private enterprises rendered
helpless in their ability to continue their day-to-day business after an attack.
Start with a proper data protection strategy.

Understanding what part of your data is critical to your operations is the
first step to ensure that a backup copy is readily available on magnetic tape. Keeping
a disconnected offline copy of your data is important to your data recovery
(DR) plan because tape storage provides the best offline option, is
inexpensive, portable—and offline.

When ransomware hits, you want to be proactive, prepared, and in the
position to stand up against ransomware threats. Let’s stop giving them the
upper hand and may this 2020 be uncompromising and ransomware-free.

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The “Chill Factor” in a Secured Backup and Archive Solution

air-gap

The topic of data growth and security continues to be a challenge for many
organizations. The question to “air-gap” or not to “air-gap” is consistently
being posed across all industries as they think about a solid backup and
archive strategy. When it comes to how and where to invest, air-gapping becomes
the last item on the checklist, and understandably so. Data keeps growing and
while budgets may increase slightly, IT resources are forecasted to stay flat,
according to IDC. With so many avant-garde technologies out there, it seems
tape is shrinking in its usage. However, tape’s unique ability (despite its
advanced age) to morph into a sustainably green, secure, and very
cost-effective alternative to other backup and archive solutions allows it to
stay relevant – even over cloud alternatives. I’d say a rebound could be on the
horizon…

So, what is the chill factor?

As in weather, the wind chill will determine how cold it actually feels on
your skin when the wind is factored in. Likewise, organizations today must
understand their data to determine how hot or cold it is to leverage the
appropriate storage solution that is efficient yet cost effective. Much of the
data in more expensive primary storage is cold. Cold data is simply
infrequently used data. IDC estimates that about 40% of the 7.5 ZB of data will
be commercially related and of that, about 60% will be cold
data or data with expected retrieval of greater than 30 days. This data is a
perfect candidate for tape storage in your data center or in the cloud. And
hey, cold storage doesn’t require a lot of power and cooling.

Security

Tape continues to be the de facto to secure your cold storage/long-term
data. Fact is, the physical air-gap between tapes and the network simply does
not allow malware/ransomware or hackers to break through to reach offline data.
The goal of these evil agents is to destabilize and destroy the ability to
self-recover, and then demand a ransom. We’ve heard many stories and companies
go out of business because of the vulnerability of keeping all data online.
While any online data can be destroyed by an eventual hacker, the data stored
securely on tape is untouched with its integrity intact.

Considering both costs and damage created by these attacks, plus the
astronomical hit on your resources and valuable time that could be spent on
managing critical data, there are more than enough reasons to create the best
protection of your critical data on tape. Sure, you can keep cold data on hot
disk, but the best approach is to tier it off to the most cost-effective
alternative – tape. That’s why we highly recommend the 3-2-1-1 approach to
protection. At the end of the day, what matters is “are you able to recover?”.
If your data is chilled, there is no reason to tremble.

Economics

Determining the value of your data will help you understand the eventual
storage solution required. Never underestimate the value of your historical
data. We live in a world where our “always online” way of life opens the
door to a barrage of threats. The good news is, economics is on your side. Tape
is still the lowest cost for storage available today, and the foreseeable
future. At less than $50/TB, as long as data is preserved on tape, it will give
you the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO).

Taking these factors into consideration will bring a tiering approach to
your backup and archive strategy and enable the proper protection approach for
the type of data in need of saving, cooling, and securing.

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The Wait is Over, LTO-8 Tape is Back!

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You heard that right, the wait is over, LTO-8 tape is back!
If ever there was anything sexy about tape this is got to be one of those
moments…LTO-8 media is back, and boy are we glad!

We will be seeing an influx of LTO-8 media flood the market very soon. This news couldn’t have come at a better time as we continue to see an increase in the demand for low cost, greater capacity, long term archive requirements in many enterprises; LTO tape continues to deliver solutions for these requirements delivering high storage capacity, blazing-fast transfer rates, easy-to-use functionality, and steadfast reliability. LTO is still the ideal solution for long-term data retention and archiving.

The announcement by the LTO Consortium came on August 5, 2019, stating that Fujifilm and Sony are now both licensees of Generation 8 technology. The relevance of tape continues to increase in archive and offline long-term storage particularly with large cloud providers but also those SMB customers with tight budgets. With up to 30 TB of compressed capacity and up to 750 MB/s data transfer rates, LTO Generation 8 continues to push innovation. For more details, the announcement can be found here .

It is projected that by 2020 data will grow to 44 zettabytes; that is a 50-fold growth from the beginning of 2010; the largest culprits of this growth include machine and sensor data, hi-res video, and digital documents and images and that is just to name a few.

The outlook for LTO tape remains bright and strong with current and future generation delivering tremendous scalability and growth. As data grows by the second in gigantic steps, LTO can provide longevity, security, and assurance at a lower cost than other storage solutions.

Want to order LTO media? Simply click here !

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