Nearly 90 percent of respondents admit that not all mission-critical data is protected from cyberattacks.

Copenhagen, Denmark – April 19, 2022 – Granular and air-gapped backup are critical to data recovery, when, not if, a business falls victim to ransomware. Those are among the key takeaways from a new Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) study, titled “The Long Road Ahead to Ransomware Preparedness”, which surveyed information technology (IT) and cybersecurity professionals working within organizations across North America and Western Europe.

According to the report’s findings, while ransomware attacks aren’t always made public, they are a common occurrence and represent both a significant and recurring source of business disruption. Among the more than 600 respondents, 79 percent experienced a ransomware attack within the last year, with 17 percent experiencing attacks weekly and 13 percent experiencing attacks daily. 

More than three-quarters (79 percent) of the survey’s respondents said they categorize ransomware preparedness as being within the top five on their list of overall business priorities,

“Organizations are building their own individual strategies and processes in response to a lack of industry reference architecture or a blueprint for ransomware protection,” Christophe Bertrand, Practice Director at ESG. “The results of this report serve as a critical step in understanding the most important components of data recovery after a ransomware attack, and it is our hope that organizations can use this as guidance as they work towards preparedness.”

“The Long Road Ahead to Ransomware Preparedness” includes responses from 620 IT and cybersecurity professionals tasked with protecting against ransomware attacks at midmarket and enterprise organizations in North America (the United States and Canada) and Western Europe (UK, France, and Germany).

The study, sponsored by Keepit, the world’s only vendor-neutral and independent cloud dedicated to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) data protection based on a blockchain-verified solution, sought to identify proactive and reactive strategies employed by organizations to guard against the ransomware threat, analyze ransomware mitigation best practices and identify how organizations are prioritizing and planning to mitigate the ransomware threat in the coming 12 to 18 months.

Other Key Findings Include: 

• 56 percent of respondents admitted to having paid a ransom to regain access to their data, applications, or systems but only 14 percent got all their data back following payment. 
• Only 1 in 7 organizations report protecting more than 90 percent of their mission-critical applications from cyberattacks.  
• 39 percent of successful ransomware attacks impact cloud data, and 40 percent impact storage systems.   

Additionally, some trends identified in the study include:  

• Cloud and storage systems are the most common ransomware targets across the board. 
• Granular data restores are widely preferred as a best practice over full rollback restores. 
• Granular and air-gapped backup have emerged as best practices among industry leaders, with hybrid methodologies favored. 
• Backup is the clear leader for cyber recovery strategy and can empower organizations to refuse to negotiate with ransomers. 

“Public cloud infrastructure has become a destination of choice for data backup, which means that cloud data is increasingly becoming a target for cybercriminals who really want to render businesses inoperable. Organizations are concerned that their backup copies could be corrupted by ransomware attacks and protecting backup copies is a key prevention tactic,” said Jakob Østergaard, CTO at Keepit.  “Our strategy is to build in security from the ground up with immutable, blockchain-verified technology, encryption, and air-gapping, and the ESG study clearly documents how.” 

As an alternative to ransom paying, the ESG study revealed that air-gapped backup and the ability to granularly restore data have emerged as best practices among industry leaders, with hybrid methodologies favored. In the context of backing up cloud data, this means allowing the backup or recovery copies to be physically and logically separated from the rest of the network.

Air-gapping is a time-tested solution that allows backup or recovery data copies to be housed separately from the rest of the network. It is becoming a “must-have” technology when it comes to keeping cloud data out of reach of cybercriminals.  The ESG report demonstrates that IT leaders will be looking for these capabilities in their current and future backup solutions, which must be hybrid to support on-premises, cloud-only, or a combination of deployment topologies.

Access the Report

Company Strengthens its Canadian Presence with Local Data Centers Offering First and Only No-Transmission Guarantee

Copenhagen, Denmark – March 30, 2022 – Keepit, the market leader in cloud backup and recovery, and the world’s only independent, vendor-neutral cloud dedicated to SaaS data protection with a blockchain-verified solution, today announced the opening of its first two data centers in Canada. Keepit is partnering with Equinix – one of the world’s leading, green-by-design digital infrastructure companies to run the data centers, enabling Keepit to provide a data storage solution that follows Canadian laws and regulations for businesses operating inside and outside of Canada.  

“Our superior data center strategy is what allows Keepit’s customers to instantly recover and restore lost or compromised data,” said Keepit CTO Jakob Østergaard. “Equinix data centers are recognized globally for exceptional levels of security. And since each location has full copies of user data, with two mirrored physical locations, our clients can rest assured that their data will always be available to them, regardless of their Software-as-A Service (SaaS) vendor’s status. Keepit can confidently guarantee that our infrastructure ensures all customers’ data will remain in situ, with no middleware transmissions outside regions. We are proud to be the first and only vendor that can make that claim.” 

Keepit’s new data center investment aligns with the proliferation of the data Backup-as-a-Service (BaaS) and recovery sector, which has largely been fueled by the exponential uptick in data volumes that resulted from the increased adoption of connected technologies and digital transformation drives. 

The opening of the data centers highlights Keepit’s commitment to providing the fastest, most secure, and most efficient service to its expanding Canadian customer base, while also demonstrating the significant growth of its global network. Additionally, it will greatly increase the company’s ability to offer seamless, low-latency data backup and recovery services across leading platforms such as Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and Salesforce.  

Keepit’s unique infrastructure is architected around multiple separate, mirrored data centers in each region, with each center operating in active-active mode; thereby, data is continually replicated between the centers. In the event of a single system failure, or even the unlikely event of the loss of a full data center, the platform’s operations will remain unaffected and Keepit’s clients’ data will remain reachable and available to be restored. 

Keepit’s existing Canadian partners, such as XenTegra, understand the importance of providing Canadian businesses with data sovereignty via local data centers, and of data being stored separately from the primary environment and independent from the SaaS vendor’s storage locations.  

As a global information technology solutions advisor and reseller company focused on digital workspace technologies and cloud computing, XenTegra is enjoying good momentum in Canada:  

We are seeing an immense need for Keepit’s solution amongst our customers. Every customer we speak to about backup immediately asks whether their data will reside within the country; this is a huge concern for Canadian entities. Keepit’s decision to invest in local, dual, mirrored, and load-balanced data centers is a welcome move to ensure continuity of data availability, along with its independent and local dedicated private cloud infrastructure. For those reasons, XenTegra is pleased to be a Keepit partner

Moin Khan, CTO at Xentegra