Introduction
Data is the lifeblood of organizations in today’s digital era, encompassing personal information, financial data, and intellectual property. Protecting and securing this data is crucial for making informed decisions and driving growth. As the volume of data grows, so do the risks associated with storing and safeguarding it. Implementing backups is now an indispensable component of a robust cybersecurity strategy.
Firstly, it’s important to understand that data backups are not just copies of your data. They are an extension of your data environment, and they contain the same sensitive information and confidential data as your live environment. As such, securing backups should be treated with the same level of importance as securing your live data environment. This means implementing appropriate security controls to protect backups from cyber threats such as ransomware, data breaches, and insider threats.
In this blog post, I’ll explore some of the key cybersecurity considerations and controls you need to think about when securing your organisation’s backups.
Choose a Secure backup solution
The first step in securing your data protection backups is to choose a secure backup solution. There are several deployment models available, including cloud backups, on-premises backups, and hybrid backups. Each model has its own benefits and drawbacks, and it’s important to choose the one that best meets your organization’s needs.
Cloud backups are becoming increasingly popular due to their convenience and scalability in an endless supply of compute power. Cloud backup providers typically offer advanced security features such as data encryption, two-factor authentication, and data redundancy.
However, it’s important to choose a reputable cloud backup provider that has a strong track record of security as well as alignment to industry standard security frameworks such as ISO-27001, CIS or NIST. So do your research as to if that cloud provider has had any recent notable breaches in their environment.
On-premises backups involve storing backups in physical devices such as hard drives, NAS, SAN or tape drives. While this can provide security as you have better visibility to who can physically access your backup media, it also requires more resources and expertise to maintain and secure the backup solution.
Hybrid backups combine the benefits of both cloud and on-premises backups. This involves storing some backups on-premises and others in the cloud. This approach can provide greater flexibility and scalability while still maintaining control over data.
Whichever setup you adopt, it’s important to check the levels of protection it offers. Luckily you can run automated penetration tests to make this a breeze and pinpoint any vulnerabilities to fix.
Encrypt your backups
Encryption is a critical aspect of securing backups. By converting data into an unreadable format without the decryption key, encryption ensures that even if backups are compromised, the information remains inaccessible. Deploy robust encryption algorithms, such as the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), to safeguard backups against brute force attacks and other decryption methods.
Use strong passwords
Employing strong passwords is vital for protecting data protection backups. Weak or easily guessable passwords increase the vulnerability of backups to cyberattacks. Opt for strong, unique, and complex passwords, avoiding reuse across multiple accounts. Additionally, establish password policies that enforce regular password changes and prohibit the reuse of old passwords. These measures prevent unauthorized access to backups, ensuring that only authorized personnel can access sensitive data.
Control access to backups
Controlling access to backups is another important cybersecurity consideration when securing your data protection backups. Backups should only be accessible to authorized personnel who have a legitimate need to access them. This can be achieved through access controls such as user accounts and permissions. Access control refers to the process of controlling who can access your backups and what level of access they have.
Access controls should be implemented to prevent unauthorized access to your backups, including limiting access to authorized personnel only, enforcing strong password policies, and using two-factor authentication to further strengthen access controls.
One way to enforce access controls is using role-based access controls (RBAC). RBAC is a method of access control that assigns permissions based on the role of the user.
For example, a backup administrator would have full access to backups, while a user in the marketing department would have limited access to backups that only contain marketing data. Implementing RBAC ensures that only authorized personnel have access to backups and limits the risk of data breaches and insider threats.
It’s important to limit access to backups to only those who need it and to implement controls that prevent unauthorized access. This can include using role-based access control (RBAC) to assign permissions based on job roles and responsibilities and implementing two-factor authentication (2FA) to provide an extra layer of security.
Additionally, backups should be stored in secure locations that are physically protected from unauthorized access. This includes implementing access controls such as key card access and video surveillance, as well as fire suppression systems and environmental controls to protect backups from physical damage.
Data integrity
Data integrity is a crucial aspect of securing backups, alongside access controls, in the realm of cybersecurity. The significance of maintaining data integrity cannot be overstated when it comes to backups since any form of corruption or unauthorised tampering can render them ineffective during a catastrophic event. Regular testing of backups is essential to guarantee their validity and successful restoration of data, thus ensuring data integrity.
One method of ensuring data integrity is using checksums. Checksums are a method of verifying data integrity by generating a unique code based on the contents of the data. If the data is modified in any way, the checksum will change, alerting the backup administrator to the fact that the data has been tampered with. Implementing checksums ensures that backups are valid, and that data can be restored successfully in the event of a disaster.
Another important cybersecurity consideration when securing backups is network security. Backups are often stored offsite or in the cloud, meaning that they are vulnerable to cyber threats during transit. Network security controls such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and virtual private networks (VPNs) should be implemented to protect backups during transit.
Test your backups regularly
Another crucial consideration when securing your backup data is to ensure that the backup process is tested regularly within your organisation. Testing the backup process can help identify any potential vulnerabilities in the process and ensure that the backup data is recoverable in case of a failure or an attack. Regular testing can also help identify and allow you to prevent any issues with the backup process before it leads to data loss, otherwise you may find this out during an actual disaster. Testing a few restore scenarios then and there could be of great help to ensure the backups will work 100% whenever a recovery is needed.
Conclusion
Securing your data protection backups is critical in today’s cybersecurity landscape and should be treated how you treat your production data when it comes to securing it.
Therefore, it is essential for all organisations to consider various cybersecurity considerations when securing your data protection backups, including encrypting the backup data, securing the physical location of the backup data, ensuring secure transfer of the backup data, regular testing of the backup process, having a disaster recovery plan in place, and keeping the backup data up to date.
By considering these cybersecurity considerations, you can help ensure that your backup data is secure and can be recovered in case of a failure or an attack.
Using a comprehensive and effective backup and disaster recovery solution like BDRSuite coupled with best practices in your backup strategy can provide the highest level of business continuity and security protection for your hybrid cloud environment.\
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