Have you been in a situation where your data is being held hostage by proprietary contracts that are getting increasingly expensive? We’re all aware of the dangers of cybercrime and ransomware attacks. But, it’s not only hackers that can control your data. Sometimes you end up tied down to multi-year provider contracts and moving the data somewhere else may seem like a daunting process. You might have security concerns, or worry about losing data along the way. There are solutions that can keep your content safe and secure without fixed annual fees and egress costs to access your data.
Cybercrime
Many media and broadcasting companies are especially vulnerable to cybercrime because they keep a significant portion of their assets in very few places. During the pandemic, they may have been accessing content remotely via unsecure protocols and procedures from legacy storage platforms. A small company might find it convenient to consolidate their data onto a single NAS or SAN device. Or, they may hold onto a legacy system that is not equipped with the modern operating systems and security features that are now available.
This type of scenario makes it very easy for a hacker to access critical data that may not have been backed up elsewhere. We’ve all read about how even the largest of companies have come under attack in recent years.
Protect your data from ransomware
The most important thing to consider for keeping your data safe is to have it behind a strong firewall and then to only let out copies of data for editing, checking back in edited versions. This is the strategy promoted by object storage, as it sits behind an object storage API. Our vendor partner Object Matrix provides safe data transmission options, secure archiving and built-in replication that is easy to use.
”MatrixStore has been proven in a major real-world hack against a production company to have not only kept data safe during that attack, but also to have tracked and audited that the data was safe. There simply wasn’t a filesystem interface for the hackers to walk through and the security on the API meant the hackers must have had access to a special set of keys. We call this Digital Content Governance (DCG). No system is fool-proof, but DCG can provide extra layers of security.
Francisco OntosoCTO, Object Matrix
It is important to think of your data as valuable assets that need to be protected and dispersed. Don’t keep it all in one place. Always make sure you have a backup. Avoid having access to everything from a single login. Consider using a mix of both on premise and cloud storage. However, the safest solution is one that is independently firewalled and that also supports immutability across all access points.
”Although you can’t prevent ransomware everywhere, our customers that are using MatrixStore as an archive can protect 100% of their archives by assigning immutable data vaults where the content can’t be overwritten or encrypted. This allows you to store objects using a write once, read many (WORM) model where the data cannot be changed or deleted, meaning that potential hackers cannot tamper with the files. We recommend using solutions such as MatrixStore that support immutable data vaults, as it is the key defence against ransomware attacks.
Brent AngleCTO, CineSys Inc.