Ep. 12 Protecting Federal Data

June 7, 2022

Veeam has been serving large organizations for so long that many have categorized it as a company that only does backups. Well, times have changed, and so has the approach to making data safe. Jeff Reinhard begins the discussion by defining the terms: backup, replication, and snapshots. From there, he dives into more serious strategic concepts.

A decade ago, a systems administrator could rely on a backup solution and feel comfortable. Today’s hybrid systems combined with malicious attacks and petabytes of data make those days look like a walk in the park.

"Immutability . . . That means once the data is written, it can't be changed by anyone, even an administrator or someone with full admin credentials"

Jeff Reichard, Veeam Tweet

Federal systems are increasingly hybrid, meaning that protecting data must have the ability to integrate into several applications as well as legacy systems. Multiple clouds are one concept, but when you have dozens of systems with patches, upgrades, and critical data, it requires sophisticated methods to have valid backup copies.

Today, those backup copies could be troublesome as well. Ransomware attackers are famous for placing code on a system and waiting. Mandiant reports that the meantime to detection of ransomware is 24 days. This means if a federal system is attacked, and the use of backup data, the backup can be corrupt. Jeff Reichard explains that his company offers a system where the backup data is examined for issues before it is put back into action.

One way to have prevented malicious code lurking in your backups is to consider something called an “immutable” backup. This means that a clean backup can be made and there is no possibility that malicious code can be present. Going beyond that, Veaam Government Solutions provides hardened backup for critical situations.

After listening to Jeff’s insights, you will agree that Veeam Government Solutions goes beyond traditional backup and is an integral part of the five-part NIST cybersecurity framework that includes Identity, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover.

If you enjoyed this podcast, you may want to listen to episode #9 Fraud, Identity Theft. Federal Systems