In the past 12 months, Australia has witnessed several major cybersecurity incidents, such as the Latitude Financial, Optus, and Medibank cyberattacks. Veeam’s 2023 Ransomware Trends Report revealed that 85% of  organizations suffered at least one attack in the past 12 months, a sharp increase from 76% in the year prior. This signals an urgent need for businesses to keep up with the dynamic cybersecurity landscape and ensure cyber resiliency.

Tomorrow’s Cyber Challenges 

As new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) emerge and evolve, hackers are leveraging new methods to initiate attacks. For example, attackers are using AI to refine password guessing engines and draft better phishing emails. While the risk of AI technology on cybersecurity is limited without human expertise, hackers are rapidly improving their strategies. It is no longer a matter of if a business gets attacked, it’s a matter of when. Businesses must therefore continuously update their security infrastructure and ensure that data backup forms an integral part of their cybersecurity strategy.

A poor cybersecurity strategy can result in serious ramifications, spanning from damaged brand reputation to lost data. While recent cyberattacks have only resulted in data leaks, businesses must remember there is the potential for data to be damaged and unrecoverable. The recovery process is therefore something businesses must not neglect.

According to Veeam’s 2023 Ransomware Trends Report, it takes an average of 3.3 weeks to make a full recovery or for an organization to announce that the event is over. This means significant financial impacts and disruption to business continuity. Backups are an organization’s last line of defense to ensuring data accessibility, availability, and — more importantly — business continuity. Having a hardened backup strategy goes a long way in helping businesses to recover efficiently from the inevitable attack and minimize financial and reputational impact. 

The Core of Cybersecurity: Unveiling Veeam’s Essential Eight 

In light of the challenging cybersecurity environment, Veeam is committed to helping businesses implement a proactive cybersecurity strategy that aligns with the Essential Eight strategy, a framework developed by Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) that aims to prevent attacks, limit attack impact, and ensure data recovery and system availability.  

Compliance with the Essential Eight can be assessed using the Essential Eight Maturity Scale. The four maturity levels (maturity level zero to maturity level three) reflect how mature a business’s cybersecurity posture is to defend against increasing levels of tradecraft (i.e. tools, tactics, techniques, and procedures). While maturity level three cannot fully protect businesses from cyberattacks, it reflects a robust cybersecurity posture that protects against more sophisticated attacks.

Veeam offers the highest level of cybersecurity support by aligning with the Essential Eight maturity level three. This is enables users by offering solutions that achieve the following three Essential Eight objectives.

1. Preventing attacks

Veeam’s cybersecurity solutions help businesses prevent attacks through robust application control, hardening user application, application patching, and configuring MS Office Macro settings.

2. Limiting attack impact

Restricting admin access, patching vulnerabilities in operating systems, and implementing multi-factor authentication are one of the key methods Veeam uses to minimize the impact of a cyberattack. These processes not only create an added barrier against credential compromise, they also enable businesses to identify dormant threats before they cause harm.

3. Ensuring data recover and system availability

Acknowledging that data backups are a business’s last line of defense, Veeam’s backup solutions empower organizations with automated schedules and routine application-aware backups. This provides IT leaders with confidence in the integrity of their digital assets.

Conclusion

Data backups are a critical component of ransomware mitigation and must be integrated to achieve cyber resiliency. When complemented with strong cybersecurity infrastructure, businesses can ensure they are best prepared to embrace tomorrow’s cybersecurity challenges. Veeam’s backup solutions make achieving cyber resiliency easier by aligning with the Essential Eight maturity level three.

Additional resources

To further bolster your understanding of cybersecurity and the Essential Eight, we recommend exploring official government-endorsed resources that provide in-depth insights and guidance on these strategies. These resources are invaluable in staying updated on the latest cyberthreats and best practices.

In addition to government resources, Veeam offers a range of cybersecurity solutions and resources designed to strengthen your organization’s defense against cyber threats. From data backup and recovery to threat detection and response, Veeam has you covered.

For additional support and guidance on your cybersecurity journey, don’t hesitate to reach out to our dedicated team of experts:

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