Ransomware attacks are not a fake threat – they are real and increasing day by day. The below insights on ransomware history can help you understand the evolution of its delivery and extortion strategies and be better prepared in case you become the victim of an attack.

Ransomware, locker or crypto-malware, has been around for a long time — decades in fact. Originally, ransomware was an annoyance and a con-trick, but today’s ransomware is considerably different and presents much more of a sophisticated threat to systems and users.

If you were considering becoming a cybercriminal or were perhaps a traditional villain looking to upgrade your skills for the 21^st century, I’m sure your business model of choice would be running a ransomware operation. You would, thanks to the simplicity of platforms like Ransomware as a Service and the willingness of victims to pay ransomware fees, be running a very successful business — albeit an illegal business — in a matter of days or weeks. Such is the ongoing success of ransomware as a means of extorting money from victims.

Monitoring data center performance is an essential part of every IT administrator’s job that shouldn’t be overlooked. There are many avenues you can go down when looking at a tool to help monitor performance, but with Veeam, you can do this with Veeam ONE. Veeam ONE has many capabilities, but one of the most important features is the alarm it triggers when part of your virtual environment isn’t working as it should. Pre-built alarms included in Veeam ONE keep IT administrators up-to-date on the operations and issues occurring in their environment in real-time.

The backup infrastructure is a primary target for attack because all relevant environment data is stored in that one single place. Second, if an attacker wants to destroy data, the backup environment is a good starting point because the backup server has access to pretty much every other important system, such as virtualization platform or storage systems.

There is no question that ransomware attacks are becoming increasingly prevalent. In fact, some have proposed that 2017 is the Year of Ransomware. The WannaCry attack led to the infection of more than 230,000 computers and more recently, the Petya outbreak on June 27, 2017 led to a second global spread of ransomware. While traditional methods of data protection are essential, they are not sufficient.

Traditional data protection strategies have centered around the three foundational components of IT:  people, process and technology. Data protection with people begins with education and a continuous focus on making employees aware of the most ... Read more

Today’s highway robber is a lot more sophisticated and savvy. They take far less risk and turn to the latest technology to extort you out of your money by threatening your valuables. In this case your data, your technology and most probably your computing ability.

Of course, I’m talking now about ransomware, the threat that’s been in the news almost every day for the past couple of months. The tool of choice for the modern highway robber has become headline news around the world with variants such as WannaCry and the more recent Popcorn Time. Organizations around the world have been affected by this ransomware, from the UK National Health Service, through to the Russian Postal Service in the last few ... Read more

Complete visibility within the data center is essential to keeping businesses available 24.7.365. Visibility into the data center allows IT administrators to properly utilize resources, be proactive in troubleshooting issues and run reports on their environment. Veeam allows businesses to remain proactive in monitoring and managing their environment through Veeam ONE. If you haven’t heard about it, you are truly missing out, as it works not only for your Veeam-powered data protection operations, but for entire VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V environments as well.

Here we are, one year out. Just 365 days separate us from the enforcement of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), one of the biggest changes to how personal data is handled and managed in the last 20 years. If you’re reading this blog, you’re likely affected by it either as an employee of a business with customers in the EU, as a EU citizen yourself or perhaps both.

At Veeam, we believe in rules that protect the rights of consumers, and have welcomed GDPR since it was adopted by the European Council some 14 months ago.

What is it all about, and why now?

In short, GDPR strengthens and gives new rights to individuals over their personal data such as: Who can ... Read more

The event that has been named the “largest hacking in history,” where more than 100,000 ransomware attacks affected 150 countries last Friday, reads very much like a script from a Hollywood blockbuster. However, these events occurred and had very real effects on the victims.

The attacks have been stopped since writing this post, but the experts warn that “copy cats” could be encouraged to try this again.

While the majority of focus has been on the source of the vulnerability and the group responsible for these attacks, organizations need to consider what should be done to ensure that these kinds of attacks cause minimal disruption to their applications and systems if they happen again.

As with all malware and ... Read more

Veeam and Conversational Geeks collaborated to publish Conversational Ransomware Defense and Survival, an e-book that illustrates the fundamentals for ransomware preparation, protection and recovery. As the title suggests, the book is written in a conversational tone, so it’s easy to read and it addresses both the unlucky ones who have already struggled with ransomware and those who are willing to learn more about this cybersecurity threat.