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How to protect yourself from ransomware with a 3-2-1-1 strategy

Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2025 10:06 am
by monira444
Statista says that 72% of businesses worldwide were affected by ransomware attacks in 2023. Protecting against this cyberthreat is essential for any organization today, especially when you consider that the average cost of recovery, excluding ransom payment, was $1.82 million , according to Sophos’ “The State of Ransomware 2023” report.

The same report concludes that company size does not matter. Attack rates are fairly consistent, from 58% for companies with less than $10 million in revenue to 72% for those with more than $5 billion in revenue.

Rampant ransomware can have a devastating financial impact, so you need to do everything you can to prevent attacks. On the other hand, the 2023 Verizon Data Breach Investigations report found japan whatsapp data that 74% of security breaches have a human element: mistakes, misuse of privileges, stolen credentials, and social engineering practices such as phishing or spoofing business emails. These vulnerabilities are difficult, if not impossible, to prevent.

Unfortunately, many organizations still follow the outdated 3-2-1 rule for their backups, coined by photographer Peter Krogh in his book on digital asset management. That rule was a good start, but it’s no longer enough because hackers now target backups . They’ve figured out that doing so makes recovery more difficult, if not impossible. Once hackers get into primary data or backups, they can have free rein to extend the attack to all of an organization’s systems.

Protect yourself against ransomware with the 3-2-1-1 backup rule

Today, ransomware and data loss prevention require a 3-2-1-1 backup strategy, an evolution of 3-2-1 backups:

3: Keep three copies of your data

One original and at least two copies

2: Store your backups on two different types of media

For example, on network storage, on tape , or on a local drive

1: Keep a copy in an external location

In the cloud or in secure storage

1: Ensure a copy of the data is immutable

Why immutability is important

While the meaning of the three digits in the 3-2-1 rule hasn’t changed, the new “1” added makes a huge difference, as it represents immutability. Immutable backups are stored in a write-once, read-many format, so they can’t be altered or deleted, even by hackers and administrators .

Even if hackers get hold of administrator credentials and gain full access to your network, immutability makes it difficult to delete copies or alter the state of your data. The end result is that if you are attacked, you won't have to pay a ransom to get your data back.

Immutability in the cloud

Arcserve also ensures immutability in cloud backup storage solutions by enabling Arcserve Unified Data Protection (UDP) software to support Amazon S3 Object Locking . Object Lock automatically enables S3 versioning, and together, these two features prevent overwriting and permanent deletion of locked object versions (accidentally or intentionally) .

Data recovery means business continuity

Implementing the 3-2-1-1 backup strategy ensures your data is protected and recoverable. Arcserve offers the broadest set of best-in-class solutions to manage, protect, and recover all data workloads, from SMBs to large enterprises, regardless of location or complexity.