The recent Dell Technologies 2021 Global Data Protection Index (GDPI) findings revealed worrying statistics on how organisations are struggling to keep up with the constant threat of cybercrime as they continue to embrace emerging technologies such as cloud-native applications, containers and Artificial Intelligence. Among the highlights of the GDPI findings include:
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Sixty two per cent of companies are concerned that their existing data protection measures may not be sufficient to cope with malware and ransomware threats, while 74% agree they have increased exposure to data loss from cyber threats with the growth of employees working from home.
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Over two-thirds (67%) lack confidence that all their business-critical data can be recovered in the event of a destructive cyber attack or data loss.
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Sixty three per cent believe emerging technologies—such as cloud-native applications, Kubernetes containers, Artificial Intelligence and machine-learning pose a risk to data protection, and the lack of data protection solutions for newer technologies was one of the top three data protection challenges for organisations.
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On average, the cost of data loss in the last 12 months is approaching four times higher for organisations using multiple data protection vendors as compared to those using a single-vendor approach.
Following the release of the report, DSA reached out to Saravanan Krishnan, General Manager, Data Protection Solutions, South Asia, Dell Technologies, who explained how organisations need to rethink their data protection strategy and approach to accommodate new and evolving challenges. The full transcript of the interview is as follows:
Data&StorageAsean: Events of 2020 have brought on new threats and cyber challenges for organisations. What are some of the new realities companies have to face when it comes to cybersecurity and data protection?
Saravanan Krishnan: In the data-driven world of today, every organisation is a technology company whose most prized asset is data.
Data, however, also makes organisations more vulnerable to cyber threats – such as ransomware – more than ever before. A company’s data protection capabilities continue to be stretched, and as organisations pour more investments into emerging technologies to keep up, protecting these environments also become increasingly complex and challenging. According to the Dell Technologies 2021 Global Data Protection Index (GDPI), eight in 10 (82%) IT decision-makers in Asia Pacific & Japan (APJ) are concerned their existing data protection solutions won’t meet future business challenges.
In addition to the pre-existing threats and challenges mentioned, the pivot to new work realities as a result of the pandemic in the form of the rapid transition to remote work practices, i.e. working from home, has also compounded the problem. The 2021 GDPI survey found that nearly three-quarters (72%) of organisations in APJ believe more employees working from home has increased their organisation’s exposure to data loss from cyber threats.
Put together, organisations have their work cut out to get ahead of cyber threats but with the right strategy and approach, they can build cyber resiliency to minimise disruption to the business.
Data&StorageAsean: What are some of the key areas of concern that every organisation should be aware of when it comes to data protection?
Saravanan Krishnan: The 2021 GDPI reveals three key considerations for organisations:
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Constant threat of ransomware: According to an IDC survey, more than one-third of organisations worldwide have experienced a ransomware attack or breach that blocked access to systems or data, in the previous 12 months. This is supported by the 2021 GDPI survey, where over two-thirds of respondents from APJ expressed concern that their existing data protection measures may not be sufficient to cope with malware and ransomware threats. Malaysia is no exception – most recently we read about a local reputable web hosting services provider which experienced a ransomware attack and had to scramble to bring its services back online.
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Consumption of emerging technologies: The lack of data protection solutions for newer technologies such as cloud-native applications, Kubernetes containers, Artificial Intelligence and machine-learning are posing a risk to data protection, and was one of the top-three data protection challenges cited by organisations.
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Complexities around unprecedented data growth: Globally, organisations today are managing 14.6 petabytes of data in 2021 – that is on average 10x more data than they managed five years ago! That is a whole lot of data and organisations are clearly struggling – 38% and 42% of organisations in APJ are reporting data loss in the last year and experiencing unplanned downtime, respectively.
Data&StorageAsean: What should organisations do to address these growing concerns?
Saravanan Krishnan: Another key finding of 2021 GDPI is the cost of data loss in the last 12 months which crossed the USD $1 billion mark – about four times higher – for organisations using multiple data protection vendors as compared to those using a single-vendor approach. When coupled with what we’re hearing from customers, we see the clear need for organisations to find a partner that provides the best-in-class, innovative solutions that are built to keep pace with the constantly evolving IT landscape.
A separate Dell Technologies commissioned study by Forrester on the changing role of IT services providers and the value of IT services found that 44% of organisations globally said addressing security issues is a challenge IT services providers have helped them overcome. The study showed that as organisations evolve and shift to new digital business models, IT leaders are looking more to IT services providers to help them get the most from their technology so they can stay relevant and competitive.
The constant threat of ransomware, consumption of emerging technologies such as cloud-native applications and Kubernetes containers, and complexities of unprecedented data growth can overwhelm any organisation, so business decision-makers need to get ahead of cyber threats by assessing the organisation’s readiness, their data recovery protocols and taking action to ensure they are prepared.
A great example would be the case for financial institutions. A successful cyber attack on a financial services organisation, especially in the largest of the world economies such as the United States, could trigger a global financial crisis. The data-driven era we live in today means organisations can’t escape from using data in their digital transformation efforts, and that provides a great incentive for cybercriminals to advance their tactics and tools to steal, destroy or hold data to ransom.
Dell Technologies is the first technology solutions provider in the Sheltered Harbor Alliance Partner Program – a non-profit, industry-led initiative to devise a set of cyber resilience and data protection best practices and safeguards for protecting US financial data. In the event of a sophisticated cyber attack, the Sheltered Harbor standard provides the blueprint to ensure that data necessary to restore basic banking operations are readily available with integrity, while full recovery procedures continue.
The Dell EMC PowerProtect Cyber Recovery for Sheltered Harbor is a turnkey data vaulting solution that provides participating institutions with a fast, cost-effective and efficient alternative to each institution building a one-off, proprietary vault to meet immediate deployment needs of critical customer-facing banking services, ensuring public confidence is maintained.
Data&StorageAsean: How is Dell Technologies helping businesses to better protect their data and overcome modern data challenges?
Saravanan Krishnan: The stakes have never been higher and protecting data has never been more complex. Most of the challenges that we see today are associated with the explosion of data and the need for organisations to store and protect that data. It is something we have been working on with our customers across the region to ensure holistic cybersecurity and data protection strategy is in place to address the ever-growing and evolving challenges. Dell Technologies is continuously innovating to help customers not only achieve cyber resiliency readiness but modernise protection for all their data and workloads.
Our latest software and managed services offerings are built to protect workloads of every size, wherever they are stored – ranging from continuous availability to archive and cover all consumption models, including on-premise, virtualised, hybrid cloud, and born-in-the-cloud data protection:
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Virtual infrastructures: Dell EMC PowerProtect Data Manager now offers Transparent Snapshots which provides organisations with a new way to protect VMware virtual machines at scale without undesirable compromises in latency, cost, scalability, performance and complexity. Transparent Snapshots enable back-ups without pausing virtual machines. By simplifying and automating VM image-level backups with less infrastructure, Transparent Snapshots delivers up to 5x faster backups and up to 5x reduction in VM latency.
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Capacity management: Smart Scale for Dell EMC PowerProtect Appliances allows IT to make informed decisions about their capacity needs as their infrastructure evolves, simplifying management of multiple data protection appliances at an exabyte scale. Users can configure as many as 32 PowerProtect appliances as a single pool, at more than three exabytes of logical capacity. With Smart Scale, organisations keep pace with data growth by proactively monitoring and managing backup data to maximise resource utilisation and cost savings.
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Managed services for cyber recovery: Often an oversight, data recovery is a matter of “when” not “if” for organisations and it should be part of a comprehensive cyber resiliency strategy. We now offer Managed Services for Cyber Recovery Solution to help organisations address staffing gaps and reduce risk by having Dell experts manage day-to-day cyber recovery vault operations and support recovery activities.
Organisations need to ensure they are data-driven, connected and secure, and in this day and age, it is easier said than done. Successful security transformation is based on working in collaboration with a wider ecosystem — combining external expertise with internal know-how to accelerate an organisation’s speed and agility to protect their virtual infrastructure, without compromising cyber resiliency. At Dell Technologies, our offerings are designed to deliver at scale – and competitively – so organisations can protect and recover critical data with the least amount of disruption.