Strengthening cyber resilience in a data driven age

In recent months, the world has come to rely on technology in ways we would never have foreseen this time two years ago.

With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, many businesses, large and small, embraced technology at an unprecedented speed. From enabling much of the population to work from home to transforming business models, we now live and work in a truly digital economy and society.

This has resulted in data becoming the lifeblood for businesses and organisations within both the public and private sectors. According to Dell Technologies most recent Global Data Protection Index, organisations are managing 10 times more data than they did five years ago.

In Ireland alone, 41% of businesses say the pandemic has significantly increased the amount of data they need to capture and act on.

However, with an increased dependence on data comes an increased risk of cyber threats. Around the world, a cyber attack occurs every 11 seconds, with 48% of breaches involving small businesses.

Targeting everything from critical national infrastructure to business data, the economic and social impact of cyber attacks can be significant.

Now is the time for business leaders to take action to strengthen their cyber resilience. No longer seen as an ‘added extra’, leaders will need to build cyber security and resilience into every aspect of their organisation.

Enhancing cyber resilience

That focus on building cyber resilience has never been more important. The increase in data we’ve seen over the course of the pandemic is only set to grow in the coming months and years.

Advances in 5G, the digital fabric of our data-driven era, alongside a significant increase in apps at the Edge, will lead to a proliferation in data for many businesses in Ireland. Rising volumes of data, the constant threat of ransomware, the use of emerging technologies like AI and the shift to the Cloud are all coming together to create a challenge which organisations are looking to address.

Cyber risks are obviously something front of mind for everyone right now, given the attacks witnessed in a range of sectors in Ireland. Further afield, organisations in the US have been impacted by disruptive cyber attacks, many of which have gone undetected for months.

The nature of these attacks show how cybercrime has evolved. Some forms of malware can now sit undetected in your operations for months and only become apparent when one small problem emerges that leads to the bigger issue. In 2020 the average time it took to identify a breach was 228 days.

But how can Irish organisations best protect their most valuable asset- their data?

Protecting your mostvaluable asset

At Dell Technologies Ireland, we have been working with organisations across all sectors to assess the ability of their entire business to withstand and recover from a cyber attack.

Firstly, every business must understand what its DNA is — that’s the critical 10%-15% of data and mission critical business applications that must be protected at all costs.

The next step is to explore a more resilient infrastructure than solely back-up environments to protect an organisation’s data. This process can be simplified and made more effective by services that enable organisations to move business critical data into an isolated air gap environment and lock it down in less than five steps.

This is what we call a cyber vault. This provides the ultimate protection for businesses critical information. In the event of an attack, this data will help businesses to recover. A true logical air gap needs to be inaccessible and offline, not just in a different location. Otherwise, it can still be compromised by cyber criminals. Under this model, a firm’s data is online for an hour every few days at most.

From speaking with business leaders, it is clear that many struggle to differentiate cyber protection and data protection as well as data backup versus recovery. Our team at Dell Technologies Ireland have been helping Irish companies to navigate this uncertainty by developing and scaling cyber recovery programmes and capabilities that meet the needs of an ever-changing cyber landscape.

Looking ahead

As we look ahead, one thing is certain, businesses and organisations will handle more data than ever before. That’s why it’s critical that leaders review their data protection strategy to ensure they can secure and protect data irrespective of where it is located within their organisation.

With a cyber attack occurring every 11 seconds globally, it is not a matter of “if”, but “when” an attack might take place. Organisations can no longer simply focus on just protecting individual IT systems or devices — they need to assess their ability of their entire business to withstand and recover from a cyber-attack.

At Dell Technologies, we’ve been helping companies to strengthen their cyber resilience, so they have a secure foundation on which to grow and innovate. With seven-in-10 companies in Ireland accelerating their digital transformation plans, business resilience will increasingly be tied to cyber resilience.

www.dell.com