“64% of CISOs feel that they are at risk of a cyber security attack”
“25% of businesses were forced to close as a result of ransomware”
Those were the main two takeaways I had from the recent Commvault Connections 2022 APJ event I attended. And whilst there was some fantastic technical content on offer around Automation, trending emerging technologies such as Kubernetes, and how to protect those environments (are containers and Kubernetes still considered emerging?) – It was the security-themed ransomware awareness track that shone for me. That big nasty thing has recently seen a surge globally in attacks in the last 12 months.
Shortly after I attended the Ransomware Protection and Recovery: Developing your Zero Loss Strategy session, I saw on the news that there are reports of cybercrime incident every seven minutes in Australia.
So with all the background security breaches actually happening in the Australian market and across the globe, it was hard not to take a focused interest in the wealth of content around ransomware protection at the virtual event, as well as how to recover should you be impacted by a ransomware attack.
So what is the real cost of ransomware?
$4.24 million is the average data breach cost, and just fixing the breach has an average cost of $1.4 million dollars. And while these are some scary figures, what is notable is the stark reality of the overall impact that ransomware is much much more than just the financial statistics and pending potential to go under, think the brand impact and customer churn.
The loss of faith as to how a company you are doing business with or are a client with takes a massive hit resulting in lost customers. 70% of customers of a organisationwho has sufferd a data breach say they would stop doing business with them. This is massive, and the real cost of ransomware is debilitating.
Commvault’s acknowledgment of the rise of ransomware, really solidifies their position as a data management company from what used to be a data protection company – it is not about how to create data anymore, its how to manage it and secure it with confidence – in the cloud or on-premises.
Enter Commvault’s Zero Loss Strategy – The idea to provide proactive warning, using bait to lure bad actors into spending time and effort on fake IT Assets – ultimately minimising any comprise to the real data and overall business impact rather than reactively really made me have that “Woah cool” moment.
But what I really like about this and Commvault’s approach to Zero Loss is going that step further – applying machine learning to reduce the – providing early detection for threats to understand and predict what their likely impact is before it happens – containing the potential data breach and ultimate damage to your data.
Overall thoughts on the Commvault Connections 2022 event
I can honestly say, the sessions I sat in on were refreshing, topical, and informative – Their approach to Zero loss screamed bleeding edge, and really did paint the picture that ransomware protection isnt just about smart software, but its about smart policies, company culture and process\practices to support.
What the Optus Security breach showed me is those big companies with huge IT spending, can still be targeted successfully by ransomware actors.
What the Medibank security beach shortly after the Optus breach showed me is that I too can be in that category of impacted customers being a Medibank customer myself. This made it very real.
How can I watch?
If you missed the Connections event, you’re in luck – You can access the on-demand recordings of all of the sessions on their Connections website
Hands down my favourite was the “Ransomware Protection and Recovery: Developing your Zero Loss Strategy session, but be sure to also check out “Ransomware Retrospective: Supporting the Recovery” which also provided a ton of insightful tips on recovering from a Ransomware attack.
I look forward to joining the Commvault Team at their event next year, seeing what has evolved, what are the new topical agenda items and what the progress has been in terms of organisations protecting themselves against this big nasty thing called ransomware.
For more information on how Commvault can help you reduce the impact of ransomware attacks and their Zero loss strategy – visit https://www.commvault.com/ransomware
