- News & Resources: Listings >
- Blog
- Microsegmentation: Protecting Data from Cyber Threats
- Retail shoplifting and loss prevention: How to protect your business
- Generative AI Cost Optimization Strategies
- Why Do I Need to Protect My Cloud?
- 10 Reasons for Engaging Outside Experts to Manage Your Cybersecurity
- Why Hiring a 3rd Party MSP Expert Makes Sense and – and Cents (MANY cents!)
- Brand and Network Considerations When Adopting AI Corporately
- Integrating XDR, SIEM, and SOAR
- 3-2-1 –Go? Not so quick, this time.
- 5 Things a CISO Shoud Know
- 10-Step Patch Management Checklist
- Penetration Testing vs. Breach Attack Simulation
- Current big cyber breaches and impact on businesses
- Smart Infrastructure Gets Lit Up!
- Securing Industrial IoT: The Missing Puzzle Piece
- 7 Common Cybersecurity Mistakes Made by SMBs
- The Future of Physical Security: Cloud-Based Systems
- Autonomous and Sensor Technology Use Surging
- 2024 Facilities Trends Will Require Facilities and IT Teams to Work in Tandem
- NGFW vs. WAF. What’s the Right Firewall for You?
- Chris Hadfield’s Words To Live By
- Industrial Revolution 4.0 + IIoT
- Digital Fluency Drives Innovation
- Your Cloud Needs Protecting, Too
- Your building alarm systems could become obsolete. In 2024!
- Zero Trust 2.0: Zero Trust Data Resilience (ZTDR)
- We just got, or got used to, Wi-Fi 6. What is Wi-Fi 7?
- What Does the Board Need to Know? Business Metrics that CISOs Should Share – 4th and Last in a Four-Part Series
- Why 2024 is the Year for AI Networking
- International Women’s Day is Tomorrow – Great Time to Think About…
- Data-Centric Security Step One: Classifying Your Data
- The Network – Unsung Hero of Super Bowl LVIII
- What Does the Board Need to Know? Business Metrics that CISOs Should Share – Third in a Four-Part Series
- Boosting IT Team Performance by Fostering Intuition, Curiosity and Creativity
- Breach Remediation Costs Can Wipeout Bottom Line and Business
- Hoodied Hackers Now Favour Hugo Boss
- What Do You Need to Tell the Board? Business Metrics that CISOs Should Share – Second in a Four-Part Series
- How to Get People to Re-Engage After the Holidays
- What Does the Board Need to Know? Business Metrics that CISOs Should Share – First in a Four-Part Series
- Android Devices MUST be Updated + IT Departments Being Cut as Privilege Escalation Escalates
- Today’s Common Cloud Migration and Management Concerns
- Protect Your Healthcare Network from Cyberattack – Lives are at Stake
- Happy Halloween: Black Cats Lead to Boo….Hoo.
- Insurance Underwriters are Protecting Their Flanks
- Insurance Companies Cracking Down as Cybercriminals Become Better Business Builders
- Scary Cyberattacks Stats
- Parents, Profs and IT Professionals Perceive Back-to-School Through Different Lens
- Zscaler’s new IDTR and other tools that leverage generative AI
- Vanquish Vaping, Vandalism and Villainy
- Fabric for Fast-Paced Environments
- Changes to Cyber Insurance Requirements – What you Need to Know
- Cybersecurity Readiness – Newly Released Report
- Passwords Leaked…Again
- 10-Step Patch Management Checklist
- Remote – Again – For Now… and Still Maintaining Engagement
- Protecting Pocketbooks, Passwords and Property from Pilfering
- Raspberry Robin: Highly Evasive Worm Spreads over External Disks
- Cisco Introduces Responsible AI – Enhancing Technology, Transparency and Customer Trust
- Managing Customer Trust in Uncertain Supply Chain Conditions
- Hope on the Horizon
- Toys of Tomorrow… What will spark your imagination? Fuel your imagination?
- Protecting Purses and Digital Wallets
- The Password that Felled the Kingdom + MFA vs 2FA
- The MOE’s RA 3.0 and Zscaler
- 7 Critical Reasons for MS Office 365 Backup
- Penetration Testing Important, but…
- Social Engineering and Poor Patching Responsible for Over 90% of Cybersecurity Problems
- Breach Incidence and Costs On the Rise Again + 5 Ways to Reduce Your Risk
- Cybersecurity Insurance Policies Require Security Audits and Pen Testing
- Wireless strategies for business continuity gain importance as enterprise expand IoT, cloud, and other technologies
- How Cybercrooks are Targeting YOU
- Enabling Digital Transformation with Cisco SD-WAN
- WFH Post Pandemic – What It Will Look Like. What You’ll Need.
- Leaders to looking to the IoT to improve efficiency and resiliency
- Cyber Security Vernacular – Well, some of it, for now
- Why You Need Disaster Recovery, NOT Just Back-Ups
- 10 Reasons Why Having an Expert Manage Your Cybersecurity Makes Sense and Saves Dollars
- Converting CapEx IT Investments into Manageable OpEx
- The Hybrid Workplace – Planning the Next Phase
- Cisco Cloud Calling: Empowering Customers to Thrive with Hybrid Work
- When You Can’t Access the Cloud
- How to Keep On Keeping On
- New Cisco Research Reveals Collaboration, Cloud and Security are IT’s Top Challenges
- Threats from Within on the Rise
- Cloud Covered? If Not, Take Cover!
- Zero Trust and Forrester Wave Report
- Password Based Cyber Attack: Like Leaving Keys Under Doormats
- So, What’s Up With Sensors?
- Sensors and Systems Create a Digital “Last Mile” and Help Skyrocketing Costs
- Scanners Provide Peace of Mind for Returning Students and Workers
- Sensors Improve Operations and Bottom Line… Easily and Cost-Affordably.
- Cisco Meraki Looks at 2021
- 2020 Holiday Shopping: Cybersecurity and Other Tips to Safeguard Wallets and Systems
- How to make the most of the technology you have
- Personnel, Planet and Business Progress: More Interdependent Than Ever Before
- Sure… you can get them all in the boat – but can you get them to work well together?
- Pushing the Zero Trust Envelope – Cisco is Named a Leader in the 2020 Forrester Zero Trust Wave
- Cloud Data Must be Protected, Too!
- Don’t Let Anyone Get the Dirt on You – Make It Instead!
- How IoT Devices Can Help You and Your business
- WebEx – A World of Possibility
- Creating Your Breach Response Plan Now Will Save You Thousands Down The Road
- Been hacked? Here’s what you must do next.
- The Need for Pen Testing is At an All-Time High
- 5 Ways an IT Reseller Improves Your Performance and Peace-of-Mind
- 5G and Wi-Fi 6: Faster, more flexible, and future ready. Are you?
- Network and Data Security for Returning and Remote Workers + Disaster Recovery Symposium
- Collaboration and Cisco WebEx: Protecting Your Data
- Thursday’s Virtual Conference Tackles Today’s Supply Chain Trials and Tribulations
- 10 Tips to Reduce Cloud Storage Risk
- COVID-19 Crisis Fuelling IT Spending
- Supply Chain/Logistics Experts Share Their Expertise
- Cisco Breach Defence Overview
- Announcing Our New Website and Blog
3-2-1 –Go? Not so quick, this time
by Jane-Michèle Clark, curating Veeam Blog Content in Places, with Permission
Aug 15, 2024
For years, 3-2-1 was the standard for data back-up. Based on photographer Peter Krogh’s process for reducing the likelihood of losing his work, the IT community adopted the approach. For IT, the 3-2-1 rule means that you keep:
-
3 copies of your data (and operating systems + permissions and protocols), on
-
2 different types of media, with
-
1 copy stored off site in case of fire, theft or Mother Nature’s wrath). I would enhance this by specifying, an “air gapped copy”.
Although still a good basic way to mitigate against single points of failure, and to provide redundancies to ensure data availability and the safety of critical information, a daily full backup is no longer sufficient for many organisations.
Instead, using incremental backups, or differential backups may be more effective – especially for financial institutions, healthcare and retail and/or organisations where data is constantly changing, Continues Data Protection (CDP) may be a better option. It can also prove invaluable in a disaster recovery situation.
The enhanced – and often significant – storage and performance benefits do require closer management and data consistency and accessibility. For this reason, IT departments implementing such a process may wish to consider hiring a specialized third-party company to manage the backup.
With over 96% of North American organisations using the cloud in some manner, cloud-based backups can simplify did protection, as well as improving its security and resilience. Some of the benefits of cloud backups include:
-
Instant availability – No need to retrieve physical storage media, to begin the process.
-
Data redundancy – Leading cloud providers offer multiple availability zones, guaranteeing uninterrupted data access even if one data center experiences downtime.
-
Immutability: By placing backups in a WORM (Right Once, Read Many) state, you can make your backups immutable, which is crucial for maintaining data integrity, ensuring compliance, and safeguarding against tampering, accident alterations and even, potential data breaches.
It is also advisable to use a supplementary backup software solution, such as Veeam.
Why should I worry about this? I use Microsoft 365 Backup
Good question. Before answering it, however, a little background:
Last summer, Microsoft soft-launched its Microsoft 365 Backup, with general availability occurring a few months ago. According to Microsoft, the Microsoft 365 Backup will…
“1. Backup all or select SharePoint sites, OneDrive accounts, and Exchange mailboxes in your tenant.
-
Restore OneDrive accounts, SharePoint sites, and mailbox items to a prior point in time for your entire tenant.
-
Search or filter content in your backups using key metadata such as site names, owners, subject, creation/modification dates, and event types restore point date ranges.”
The solution promises recovery speeds +20 times faster than traditional backup architecture, with the advantage that “your data is kept in its native format, encrypted, geographically distributed, and secured within Microsoft 365.”
That being said, Microsoft goes on to discuss the benefits of marrying Microsoft 365 Backup with partner applications. One these partners is Veeam, which is also partner of ours. More on that in a moment, but first let us answer the original question: Why be concerned about extra protection when I use Microsoft 365 Backup?
Microsoft 365 Backup, although a great tool, has limitations
The limitations are in terms of backup frequency and retention times.
Frequency: Although backup happens every 10 minutes for emails through Exchange Online, snapshots of your data are taken only once every 12 hours for OneDrive and SharePoint.
Retention: Backups are only retained for 14 days on OneDrive, SharePoint and Exchange. This means that if something important gets deleted, but is not noticed for couple of weeks because of any number of reasons, you may not be able to recover the data. A greater concern, however, is that Ransomware and other threat vectors can lurk for longer than a fortnight before attacking.
This retention time frame needs to be considered against your industry’s compliance policies, as well as any regulatory requirements (e.g. information needed for tax returns, etc.).
Recovery: You will need to get help from Microsoft support to do a full restore, and might lose recent changes because Microsoft 365 Backup does not allow for granular recovery of individual files.
This is where it makes sense to use a third party application in tandem with Microsoft 365 Backup. As mentioned, we like Veeam – as do +21 million users around the world. One of the many reasons for this is that it delivers a single solution for cloud, virtual, physical, SaaS and Kubernetes – and retention and frequencies can be adjusted.
The 3-2-1 rule becomes a 3-2-1-1-0 Rule with Veeam
The following approach taken from Veeam’s February 5, 2024 blog post:
Veeam can configure numerous combinations following the 3-2-1 Rule. This versatility is evident in the following implementations, each contributing to adherence to this guideline:
-
Backups on disk (DAS, SAN, NAS, and appliances)
-
Backups on tape
-
Backups on removable storage
-
Storage snapshots (caution on separate media from production)
-
Backups in object storage such as in the public cloud with the Scale-out Backup Repository’s capacity tier
-
Backups in cold archive storage in the public cloud with the Scale-out Backup Repository’s archive tier
-
Backups hosted or managed by a service provider, including Veeam Cloud Connect
-
Replication to another host or site with Veeam replication
-
Backup copy jobs to another storage location
The Veeam difference is that we have added an extra 1 and 0 at the end, helping ensure recovery with the many types of incidents that can occur. This upgraded rule gives incredible versatility by going the extra mile.
3-2-1-1-0:
-
Three Copies of Data: Ensure that you have three copies of your data, adhering to the traditional aspect of the rule.
-
Two Different Media Types: Maintain data redundancy by using two distinct media types, but now, consider cloud storage as one of those options (i.e., snapshots on volumes and backups on object storage).
-
One Copy Offsite: Have one copy of your data stored offsite, which can be effortlessly achieved with cloud backup solutions (i.e., alternate AZ, region, or cloud provider).
-
One Copy Offline, Air-gapped, or Immutable: Acknowledge the importance of having one copy that is either offline, air-gapped, or immutable. This aspect is critical, especially in the context of ransomware protection, where an offline, air-gapped, or immutable copy can be a lifesaver.
-
Zero Errors with SureBackup Recovery Verification: Finally, ensure that your data is error-free by employing SureBackup recovery verification, which can proactively identify and address potential issues with your backups.
Mind the Gap
No, we are not talking about air gaps or protecting yourself from subway trains arriving at the station. In its 2024 Data Protection Trends Report, Veeam, states that:
-
“85% of organizations recognize an ‘Availability Gap’ between how fast they could recover versus what the business processes require.
-
76% of organizations recognize a ‘Protection Gap’ between how much data they could afford to lose and how often their data is protected.”
As you can see, many organisations are not as well-protected as they could/should be. Please call us for a no obligation exploration of how well your backup system is serving your needs. We can be reached at [email protected], or 1.877.238.9944.