Asigra co-founder and executive vice president Eran Farajun said during the EChannelNews podcast that the company would not transform itself into a security player.
However, the Toronto-based cloud backup, recovery and restore software vender is going to add new cyber security features to its flagship product Cloud Backup Evolved Version 14. The new cyber security features are in place to counter-act the latest malware threats, including the Attack-Loops ransomware. Attack-Loops target backup data to prevent successful recoveries thus forcing the victims to pay the ransom.
Over the 30 plus years Asigra has been in business, the company has seen the evolution of the data protection business. Farajun said back in 1986 data looked and was treated differently. “It was a lot smaller and it was on hard drives that were a lot bigger; like a third of a desk. And, it was not as important to business like it is today, where it’s the life-blood. They say data is the new oil so a lot of changes in 30 years,” he said in the podcast.
Fast track to today and the threat of ransomware can be very disruptive on any size organization, both operationally and in the pocket book. According to the 2017 Norton Cyber Security Insights Report, hackers absconded with approximately $172 billion from people in 2017 through ransomware and crypto-jacking.
Case in point, the latest events at Facebook, Farajun pointed out. “On one hand having data is a plus because it’s worth a lot of money and it is the life-blood of business today and in the future. But it can also be a liability if you are holding onto data that you should not be or you are not able to access the data. Data can bring a lot of goodness and generate a lot of value, but if it’s not treated right it can be problematic and become a double-edge sword.”
Inside the newest release of Asigra Cloud Backup Evolved is a new platform that converges data protection and IT security for malware detection that ensures secure and reliable backup and data recovery. The enhanced platform can prevent zero-day Attack-Loops using bi-directional malware detection, zero-day exploit protection, variable repository naming, and two-factor authentication (2FA). The company is positioning this product as a full defensive suite against advanced ransomware and other cyber-attacks on backup data. This is complemented by FIPS 140-2 certification and military-grade data encryption to ensure enterprise-class data security.
Also in the podcast, Farajun talks about the company’s channel strategy, ransomware, myths about cloud backup, and Asigra’s security plans.
