{"id":11844,"date":"2022-02-10T15:46:12","date_gmt":"2022-02-10T15:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/02\/10\/infinidat-aims-to-neutralize-ransomware-threat-with-upgrades-to-infiniguard-high-end-enterprise-backup-appliance\/"},"modified":"2022-02-10T15:46:12","modified_gmt":"2022-02-10T15:46:12","slug":"infinidat-aims-to-neutralize-ransomware-threat-with-upgrades-to-infiniguard-high-end-enterprise-backup-appliance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/02\/10\/infinidat-aims-to-neutralize-ransomware-threat-with-upgrades-to-infiniguard-high-end-enterprise-backup-appliance\/","title":{"rendered":"Infinidat aims to neutralize ransomware threat with upgrades to InfiniGuard\u00a0high-end enterprise backup appliance"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Nineteen years ago this month, criminals perpetrated the biggest physical theft<\/a> this century, stealing over $100 million worth of diamonds and jewels from the Antwerp World Diamond Centre. The Centre kept its assets in a supposedly impenetrable vault. But the thieves still made it in, and out again, undetected.<\/p>\n

In the information technology world, storage holds the position of the \u201csafe vault.\u201d This is where companies keep their data resources, which are the digital-era equivalent to diamonds. And just like the infrared sensors, seismic detectors and multi-control locks used to secure physical assets, digital companies invest in multiple security tools to protect their data vaults.<\/p>\n

But the lesson learned by the World Diamond Centre is the same for virtualized data protection: No security measures are strong enough to completely protect valuable resources. What can thwart cybercriminals is the ability to recover securely stored data in the event of a breach.\u00a0This is the goal of Infindat Inc.\u2019s InfiniGuard enterprise backup appliance, which boosted its cyber-resilient superpowers in a major update\u00a0announced today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven two petabytes of data can be available in 15 to 30 minutes, and then the backup admin can restore from that backup dataset,\u201d said Eric Herzog<\/a> (pictured, left), chief marketing officer of Infinidat Ltd.<\/p>\n

Herzog spoke with Dave Vellante<\/a>,\u00a0host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media\u2019s livestreaming studio during theCUBE\u2019s special presentation \u201cInfiniGuard Cyber Resilience: Infinidat\u2019s New Cybercrime-Fighting Solutions<\/a>,\u201d which marked Infinidat\u2019s unveiling of new cyber-resilient features in its InfiniGuard high-end enterprise backup appliance.<\/p>\n

Stan Wysocki<\/a> (pictured, right), president of Infinidat customer Mark III Systems Inc., joined Herzog and Vellante for the second half of the event to discuss how Mark III Security\u2019s enterprise customers are addressing data security.\u00a0(* Disclosure below.)<\/em><\/p>\n

InfiniGuard aims to calm the fears of CEOs stressing about cybercrime<\/h3>\n

Cybersecurity is the number one concern of Fortune 500 CEOs, according to a 2021 survey<\/a>. As the importance of internal and external end-user engagement rises, so does company reliance on data to power artificial intelligence and provide a holistic view of that user interaction, which in turn increases the value of that data to the company and to criminals.<\/p>\n

\u201cCybersecurity becomes extremely important, not just because of the technical skills of the hacker are getting better and better, but because we\u2019re becoming more reliant on the data that we have,\u201d Wysocki said.<\/p>\n

On average, a company has an arsenal of 45 security tools<\/a> to prevent, combat and recover from cyberattack. But, an excess of point tools hinders the ability to respond. An\u00a0IBM study<\/a> found that companies with more than 50 tools were 8% less likely to detect an attack and had a 7% lower response rate.<\/p>\n

The answer? Built-in security from those data \u201cbank vaults\u201d \u2014 the data storage companies themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cData storage companies have an important role to play in fighting cybercrime,\u201d Vellante stated. \u201cUltimately, they \u2026 are responsible for storing and protecting the data that cybercriminals are targeting to steal or encrypt in an effort to hold companies hostage in a ransomware attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

Infinidat is taking this responsibility seriously. InfiniGuard was originally launched as part of a corporate renaissance within the company that included bringing on new executive management and evolving its product portfolio<\/a>. The company\u2019s 2021 results prove the makeover has been successful.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe increased our bookings over 40% year to year. Even in Q4, we increased our bookings over 68%,\u201d Herzog stated.<\/p>\n

Twenty-five percent of Fortune 50 companies are now Infinidat customers, using one or more of the company\u2019s three solutions: the InfiniBox<\/a> primary storage solution for mixed application workloads, InfiniBox SSA<\/a> ultra-high performance all-flash array, and the InfiniGuard<\/a> backup and disaster recovery solution. The company also received a host of awards<\/a> for its enterprise storage portfolio in 2021, including being named a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Primary Storage<\/a> for the fourth year in a row.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s InfiniGuard announcement adds more fuel to Infinidat\u2019s ongoing success streak and brings the company\u2019s commitment to cybersecurity front and center.<\/p>\n

Unveiling a new level of enterprise-grade cyber resilience<\/h3>\n

The upgrades to InfiniGuard include what Herzog refers to as \u201csubsets of cyber resilience.\u201d Grouped as the trademarked InfiniSafe<\/a> technology, these are immutable snapshots, logical air gapping, fenced\/isolated networks, and rapid recovery time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe key is focused on cyber resilience with what we call our InfiniSafe technology,\u201d Herzog said.<\/p>\n

In a short video<\/a>, he defines cyber resilience as a company\u2019s level of resistance to cyberattack. \u201cIt\u2019s when, not if you\u2019ll be attacked,\u201d Herzog stated, underscoring the reality of today\u2019s cybersecurity landscape.<\/p>\n

Preparing for the inevitable attack requires a three-pronged approach, according to Herzog. One prong is traditional castle-and-moat security to try and keep the bad guys out. Another is security patrols to catch them when they do enter. And the third is having cyber-resilient data storage for fast recovery.<\/p>\n

Breaking down the subsets within InfiniSafe, Herzog described the importance of immutable snapshots in the case of cyberattack. Secondary storage is one of the main targets of criminals, and if they don\u2019t control the back up, the company can just restore from it. As the name suggests, immutable snapshots are data backups frozen in time.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan\u2019t delete them, can\u2019t change them, can\u2019t alter them,\u201d Herzog said.<\/p>\n

Adding to the security is the ability to air-gap the snapshots from the management framework or schema. Inside each InfiniGuard appliance is a technology the company calls data deduplication engines, or DDEs. Normally, these would have access to alter a backup data set, but by creating the logical air-gap, the DDEs are divorced from the snapshots and cannot alter their characteristics, according to Herzog.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn short, we take that management schema away and create this separation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The company has a tradition of doing things differently, and its InfiniGuard solution is no exception. The solution creates a fenced\/isolated network where data backups can be examined post-attack to find the most recent clean version without risk of exposure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe set up this isolated fence network in which to perform that forensic analysis to give you the appropriate good recoverpoint,\u201d Herzog stated.<\/p>\n

Mark III Systems has a customer that paid out on a public ransomware attack before moving to Infinidat\u2019s solutions. Now, Infindat is their \u201cde facto, standard storage platform,\u201d according to Wysocki. \u201cThis is one of those examples of the very technical discerning customer, that really demands excellence,\u201d he said. \u201cThey love the availability and the resiliency, and when it comes to the cybersecurity since they\u2019ve gone onto this platform, they feel much more comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

InfiniGuard enables data environment recovery in 30 minutes or less<\/h3>\n

The purpose of the InfiniSafe technology is to render ransomware attackers impotent by providing almost instantaneous recovery of the entire data environment in the event of a loss. This works not only when data is hijacked by bad actors, but when it is destroyed by a natural disaster. This is an ability that is unique to Infinidat, according to Herzog.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether it be purpose-built backup competitors or whether you look at primary storage competitors, almost no one talks about the speed of their recovery. And the one or two that do, talk about recovering the data set. We recover the entire environment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Fifteen to 30 minutes is the timeline Infinidat gives from the moment the third-party backup becomes available to full operational restore. This figure is independent of the data set size, according to Herzog.<\/p>\n

InfiniGuard is designed to integrate with any backup vendor the customer chooses, including Commvault Systems Inc., Veeam Software Corp., Veritas Technologies LLC, IBM Spectrum Protect, and even direct database connection to Oracle Corp.\u2019s Recover Manager.<\/p>\n

Alongside providing data cyber resilience, InfiniGuard\u2019s latest upgrade increases system performance from 74 terabytes per hour to up to 180 terabytes per hour. This speeds backup times by up to 50% and improves performance for primary applications, servers and storage. The upshot is lower CapEx and OpEx costs,\u00a0according to Herzog.<\/p>\n

A real-life example of this comes from a major European client of Mark III Systems that went from operating 14 purpose-built backup appliances split across two data centers to just two Infinidat boxes, one in each data center. The company does local backups within the data center and then replicates the environment from one data center to the other so that both are simultaneously active data centers and disaster recovery backups.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Infinidat] is not only providing that data protection and cyber-resilience technology, but doing it in a cost-effective way,\u201d Wysocki said.<\/p>\n

Another Mark III Systems customer, this one a global financial services provider, increased its daily backup number from 30,000 to 90,000 after switching to Infinidat.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving an environment like this means the CSO and his team can focus on preventing attacks, while they\u2019re very confident that their infrastructure team can handle anything that slips by them,\u201d Wysocki said.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the complete livestream program, part of SiliconANGLE\u2019s and theCUBE\u2019s coverage of the \u201cInfiniGuard Cyber Resilience: New Cybercrime Solutions\u201d<\/a>\u00a0event.\u00a0(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the InfiniGuard Cyber Resilience: Infinidat\u2019s New Cybercrime-Fighting Solutions event. Neither Infinidat Ltd., the\u00a0 sponsor of theCUBE\u2019s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n