On April 20, 2022, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a cybersecurity advisory urging businesses to be aware of and prepared for malicious cyber activity coming from Russia.
Since invading Ukraine this spring, CISA reports that Russian state-sponsored cyber operations have recently included distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and the deployment of destructive malware against the Ukrainian government and critical infrastructure organizations.
CISA recommends taking several immediate actions for all organizations to take to protect their networks, including:
- Prioritize patching of known exploited vulnerabilities
- Enforce multi-factor authentication
- Monitor remote desktop protocol (RDP)
- Provide end-user awareness and training
In response, we advised our clients to start reviewing and assessing their security posture to prepare for increased instances of cyber warfare targeting U.S. businesses. We’d also like to recommend conducting a health check on your backups. If your business is attacked, you don’t want to discover your backups are corrupted, compromised or out of date after the fact. A quick check-in now can uncover vulnerabilities that would otherwise be catastrophic. A stitch in time saves nine, right?
Involta’s Quick Backup Health Check
Testing your backup procedures is the best way to make sure your data can be restored in the event of a disaster–whether that’s a natural disaster, an honest human error or a malicious cyber attack.
- Check up on your data
Is everything you need to operate your business stored securely and backed up to a secondary location? Is anything missing? Identify gaps and put plans in place to address them, so you can rest assured that your critical data and information are safe and secure. If something happens, you’ll know where to go to recover what you need to keep operations running. - Test your restore procedures
Having procedures in place to restore and recover data is excellent, but if you’re unfamiliar with the process, you may not be able to react in a timely manner if your company falls victim to a cyber attack. Practice makes perfect, so run some trials. Practice the procedure from start to finish, and note how long it takes. If you have data or applications stored in different environments–offsite or in the cloud, for example– test these as well. These trial runs will provide valuable baselines and give you an answer to the inevitable question: how long until our systems are back up and running again? - Check in with your Backup-as-a-Service provider
If you contract with an outside backup-as-a-services (BaaS) provider like Involta, schedule a friendly check-in to ensure everything is in order and that you understand the procedures involved with recovering your data after a disaster. If the provider’s process doesn’t align with your company’s requirements, explore options to increase the services and decrease recovery times. Regular check-ins and routine tests will help your company bounce back.
If you have backup procedures in place, you’re already ahead of the pack. Make sure you stay there by preparing your team to respond quickly and efficiently. When you have clearly-defined processes in place, your team will be able to spring into action at a moment’s notice. The alternative is spinning wheels and costly downtime that could expose vulnerabilities and make your company a target.
We understand that this is a lot to ask on top of your regular duties. The Involta Security Team is here to help you Get There. Tag us in to test backups and help your team know what to do when the time comes.
Involta Secure: Advanced Security and Compliance
Involta has handled security and compliance since we opened our first data center over 10 years ago. Our Security Operations Center (SOC) channels that experience into Involta Secure, a multi-layer suite of security services and backup/recovery solutions that our dedicated security team uses to neutralize threats before they impact your assets or operations. Ready to leverage our expertise for your company?
