I can’t remember the last time I saw sporadic cyber-attacks on health organizations; seems like a very long time ago. Lately they’ve been relentless and merciless on the most vulnerable – health institutions. According to French government, since the beginning of the year, they’ve seen a health facility fall victim to a cyber-attack on a weekly basis. “The hospitals at Dax and Villefranche-sur-Saône were paralyzed by attacks in which hackers blocked the telephone systems, forcing the hospitals to shut off the internet service and other networks to keep the ransomware from spreading. This affected patient records, surgical devices, medication management, appointments, bed and doctor allocation,” reported Healthcare IT News, an authoritative source covering technology in healthcare. The French Government is finally cracking down on e-crime, responding with a one-billion-euro investment in a national cybersecurity strategy.
This story resonates all over the world, including the United States. As we see, the unwavering attacks continue to rise leaving many institutions crippled, unable to provide services that truly skirt a life-or-death scenario. With the appearance of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, this development presented new yet urgent challenges for the medical community.
At Quantum, we are working hard to protect our cyber climate, and want to empower the healthcare industry with the knowledge and tools to protect and recover from ransomware and other malware. E-security methods will evolve, but today we need to employ technologies, such as machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), to provide the advanced security analytics needed to stay ahead of the criminals, and of course, mitigating risk takes multiple technologies. Not one single solution can achieve the protection needed for the assault healthcare organizations are experiencing.
Protect Network and Backup Infrastructure
While networks and production data must be protected, so does your backup infrastructure. Recent analysis of criminal tactics indicate that attackers are targeting critical systems but with a focus on backup first. Why? If they can disable your ability to recover, they’ve won the battle. With the ability to recover gone, what can you do? Institutions end up paying ransom, but this doesn’t solve the problem.
Solutions to Recover Data Across Any Point in the Data Lifecycle
Tools like the ability to isolate your backups via immutable storage or leveraging a physical airgap to create a barrier that protects and enables fast recovery are indispensable. As the data protection experts, Quantum has created solutions that can protect and recover your data across any point in your data’s lifecycle. We did this to help you maintain a cost-effective, multi-tiering solution that also provides you the ability to use just about any application you prefer. Let’s take a closer look:
A blended mix of technology that secures and isolates backups in different tiers, all kept in either a non-network addressable location or in an immutable state that simply unreachable by an intruder. Your institutional needs vary and so does your data. So, depending on performance, retention, scale, and risk level needs, we have a solution that focuses on each tier.
- In the first tier where performance matters, data is backed up to shares where the DXi Backup Appliance system (per your schedule) takes snapshots that cannot be deleted or encrypted making backups (snapshots) immutable, which means backups can be managed to meet SLAs required RTOs and RPOs. This solution supports NAS, OST, VTL protocols.
- In the large unstructured nearline storage tier, where medical imaging can be stored, retained, and made readily available, we support keyless encryption of data at rest to prevent access via unauthorized applications. The Object Lock feature in ActiveScale makes objects immutable; once set, immutability can’t be modified even by an administrator, making data safe from ransomware attacks. The system may be partitioned into buckets and different protection policies may be applied to align with the security requirements. This a simple and easy to use and architecture that is designed to scale seamlessly at an exabyte level for on-prem hybrid cloud data storage.
- In a long-term retention tier, there is the simple, yet very effective physical barrier created by Scalar Tape Libraries that secure your data in an “active” vault in the library so that data is isolated, secured and readily available when you need it. This long-term storage tier that is highly recommended by CISA, FBI, and NCSK UK is the most cost-effective method to protect and recover from ransomware.
To learn more about how Quantum solutions can help you achieve solid ransomware protection and recovery, please contact a Quantum authorized reseller or reach out to us at www.quantum.com to help you connect with someone who can help you.
Source: Emmanuel Macron pledges €1bn for cybersecuri t y after hospital ransomware attacks | Healthcare IT News