Data protection, backup and archiving

Retrospect Backup refines anomaly detection in ransomware battle

StorCentric backup software brand allows customer fine-tuning of anomaly detection in struggle against ransomware, and adds immutable copies via object locking in Azure Continue Reading

Botched third-party configuration exposes Internet Society data to web

Personal data on members of The Internet Society was exposed after a supplier failed to secure its Azure storage Continue Reading

The top backup and disaster recovery services of 2021

Products of the Year winners in the backup and disaster recovery services category wowed judges with their innovation, ransomware protection and scalability. Continue Reading

Porn sites will be legally required to verify users’ ages

Porn sites could be legally obliged to verify that their users are 18 or over under proposed online safety rules, in UK government’s second attempt to prevent children from accessing pornography online Continue Reading

Cloud-era disaster recovery planning: Staff training, incident and media management

In the third in a series on cloud-era disaster recovery, we set out the key components of DR staff awareness and training programmes, as well as incident management and dealing with the media Continue Reading

How open source is shaping data storage management

Open source data storage offers a great deal of flexibility, but unlocking its benefits will require strong technical resources to meet requirements such as stability, high availability and security Continue Reading

British Council data exposed by third-party cyber failure

The British Council entrusted confidential data on its students to a third-party and was let down Continue Reading

Cloud storage data residency: How to achieve compliance

There’s a conflict between cloud storage and the need to comply with local laws and regulations. We look at cloud data location, data residency, data sovereignty and data adequacy Continue Reading

Refrigeration firm freezes legacy backup for one Cohesity cluster

France-based Clauger had reached limits of capacity and complexity with multi-supplier legacy backup, so moved to one Cohesity cluster and gained restores that took mere minutes Continue Reading

Navigating PIPL: European businesses plot their next steps into China

How does China’s strict new Personal Information Protection Law impact European businesses? Continue Reading

Cloud-era disaster recovery planning: Setting strategy and developing plans

In the second in a series on cloud-era disaster recovery, we look at how to formulate a DR strategy and develop detailed DR plans for your organisation, while taking cloud services into account Continue Reading

Cyber pros: Don’t revel in REvil’s downfall just yet

The arrests of REvil’s alleged kingpins is a welcome step, but as with any disruption to cyber criminal activity, it is never wise to assume law enforcement action means the threat has passed entirely Continue Reading

Cloud-era disaster recovery planning: Assessing risk and business impact

In the first in a series on cloud-era disaster recovery, we provide a step-by-step guide to building firm foundations for the disaster recovery plan, with risk assessment and business impact analysis Continue Reading

Podcast: 2022 compliance preview – GDPR goes global

We talk to Mathieu Gorge, CEO of VigiTrust, about what’s looming in compliance, with regulations based on the principles of the General Data Protection Regulation plus the concept of cyber accountability Continue Reading

OVHCloud hit with customer class action over March 2021 datacentre fire

OVHCloud said it cannot comment at this time on the legal action, which is being embarked upon to compensate customers who claim to have lost data as a result of the public cloud firm’s datacentre fire in March 2021 Continue Reading

Proofpoint acquires Singapore data security startup

Proofpoint’s acquisition of Dathena will bolster its data loss prevention capabilities, enabling organisations to better understand information risk through the use of AI Continue Reading

Top 10 cloud storage, DR and datacentre storage stories of 2021

Key articles from 2021 that demonstrate the growing importance of cloud storage and disaster recovery, but also the snags that lead to cloud repatriation and difficulties restoring from the cloud Continue Reading

Top 10 ransomware and backup stories of 2021

Key articles from 2021 that highlight the link between ransomware and snapshots and backup and their role in repelling attacks, plus effects of the pandemic on backup and recovery Continue Reading

Gig economy algorithmic management tools ‘unfair and opaque’

Report published by Worker Info Exchange warns of algorithmically enabled rights abuses in the gig economy, noting the insufficient transparency of employers and the lacklustre nature of legal redress Continue Reading

IT priorities 2022: Ransomware and cloud drive storage and backup

The pandemic and the move to the cloud has driven cloud storage as a key priority Continue Reading

Spy tech gets high tech – why MI6 invests in startups

In this week’s Computer Weekly, we’re used to James Bond and his gadgets, but now MI6 is investing in tech startups to develop new intelligence capabilities. Our exclusive IT Priorities survey suggests IT leaders are optimistic about 2022. And our new buyer’s guide examines the latest emerging technologies. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

Recovering from ransomware: One organisation’s inside story

In February 2021, French office equipment supplier Manutan fell victim to a DoppelPaymer ransomware hit. IT ops director Jérôme Marchandiau tells the inside story of the incident Continue Reading

Ransomware teaches us the importance of data protection

Several years ago, around the time that ransomware attacks started making the front pages of mainstream newspapers, not just in the IT press, I took part in a number of webcasts on the topic. The ... Continue Reading

Cloud storage compliance pitfalls: Post-pandemic and post-Brexit

We look at the key areas of cloud storage compliance that can trip you up, with shared responsibility with cloud providers and data residency among the most important Continue Reading

Cloud repatriation: Five reasons to repatriate data from cloud

We look at key drivers of cloud repatriation, including cost, compliance, issues around latency and data gravity, reversing poorly planned moves to the cloud, and supplier failure Continue Reading

The ICO is right to push back against government meddling

Some criticisms of the ICO are justified, but the answer to that is not to give Whitehall more oversight over the data protection regulator, argues legal expert Edward Machin Continue Reading

Belfast City Airport: Most apps in the cloud by 2031

George Best Belfast City Airport has already achieved 50/50 cloud and on-premise working, with 80% of workloads expected to be cloud-based in the next decade. We look at what hybrid cloud means in practice Continue Reading

Immutable snapshots aim to neutralise ransomware

Snapshots – usually immutable anyway – get functionality to stop ransomware intruders moving or deleting snapshots, so customers know they have clean copies of data to restore from Continue Reading

Create your data backup strategy: A comprehensive guide

This data backup guide will help you if you're starting the planning process, looking for a refresh or seeking new options. Backup plans are critical in today's environment. Continue Reading

No cloud storage for Belfast City Airport in Nutanix hyper-converged switch

George Best Belfast City Airport ditches ageing Dell iSCSI SAN for Nutanix HCI for half the price of nearest contender, and gets DR site into the bargain. Cloud storage was a no-go for cost reasons Continue Reading

How ransomware crews pile on the pressure to get victims to pay

Sophos researchers share some of the more common tactics ransomware gangs use to pressurise their victims into paying up Continue Reading

Cohesity beefs up ransomware and disaster recovery offer

Disaster Recovery as-a-service, Data Govern and project Fort Knox available or in development as data protection supplier augments its portfolio with ransomware firmly in mind Continue Reading

Managing cyber risk by integrating supply chains

In this week’s Computer Weekly, our latest Buyer’s Guide examines the security and IT integration challenges of modern supply chains, especially post-pandemic – while we also talk to the CEO of software provider SolarWinds about how the company overcame its huge supply chain attack. And we look at how a small town in Lancashire was chosen as the HQ for the UK’s new National Cyber Force. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

MEPs vote to expand Europol data mandate

The European Parliament has voted in favour of expanding Europol’s mandate to process data and develop AI tools, but critics claim it contradicts a previous vote which opposed using new technologies to predict crime Continue Reading

Vast boosts QLC flash offer with ransomware-proof snapshots

Vast majors on QLC flash bulk storage with 3D Xpoint cache to smooth out traffic into sequential flows Continue Reading

US intelligence agencies issue advisory on BlackMatter gang

Joint advisory on ransomware gang warns about potential of further attacks on critical infrastructure providers Continue Reading

Hybrid cloud: Five key questions in 2021

We look at key need-to-knows about hybrid cloud in 2021, including how it is defined, key use cases, the main pitfalls and where it’s heading Continue Reading

APAC expert guide to storage management

In this expert guide to storage management in Asia-Pacific, we unpack the developments shaping storage management and key strategies to extract business value from data Continue Reading

Malaysia’s highway authority improves DR capabilities

The Malaysian Highway Authority is now more resilient against cyber attacks through a local disaster-recovery-as-a-service offering powered by Veeam software Continue Reading

Addressing the backup dilemma to ransomware recovery

Everyone knows good backups are essential if one is to recover from a ransomware attack, but using them effectively poses challenges that IT teams need to know about Continue Reading

Is ‘suite’ becoming a dirty word?

How much attention do you pay to the pros and cons of software and service bundling? I was reminded of the topic on a recent briefing call with Dave Russell, Veeam’s VP of enterprise strategy, ... Continue Reading

ICO expresses concerns over its future independence

In its response to the government’s data protection consultation, the Information Commissioner’s Office has raised worries over its future ability to function independently of government interference Continue Reading

French Caisse uses NetApp to move backups to object storage

State financial arm wanted to move backups held on NAS file-based storage to object storage, so stuck with NetApp StorageGRID and achieved near-seamless migration Continue Reading

GCP gets triple-redundant NAS and built-in Kubernetes backup

Google Filestore Enterprise will provide synchronous replication across three zones, while Backup for Google Kubernetes Engine brings built-in container cluster data protection Continue Reading

Dell, NetApp and Pure: Healthy results on Covid easing

Dell’s still top of the storage supplier pile with midrange arrays doing well, but meanwhile NetApp and Pure are making gains on the rise of public cloud Continue Reading

NetApp and AWS launch fully managed Ontap cloud file storage

But hybrid cloud still limited, according to NetApp. Until containerisation is widespread, applications tend to be built for the cloud or work better in the datacentre Continue Reading

Security Think Tank: Managing data securely throughout its lifecycle

Managing data in a secure manner is key to ensuring its integrity and therefore its value to the organisation, as well as reducing risk from breaches and misinformation Continue Reading

Are proposed data protection changes a threat to UK citizens’ privacy?

Though changes are as-yet undefined pending an upcoming consultation, concerns are already being expressed over the government’s plan to liberalise data protection laws in the service of innovation and growth Continue Reading

Government unveils post-Brexit data flow proposals

The government will pursue data partnerships with countries including Australia, South Korea and the US as part of a post-Brexit data regime that may also see substantial changes to the UK’s data protection law Continue Reading

Security Think Tank: Steps to a solid data privacy practice

Petra Wenham of the BCS shares her expertise on building, or rebuilding, a solid business data privacy practice in a post-Covid-19 world Continue Reading

NZ privacy lead John Edwards named new information commissioner

DCMS has named John Edwards, currently New Zealand privacy commissioner, to succeed Elizabeth Denham as UK information commissioner Continue Reading

Over a million opt out of NHS data-sharing

Failure to communicate benefits of data-sharing proposals and privacy concerns are prompting large numbers of people to opt out of a proposed NHS Digital scheme Continue Reading

Veeam survey: Big cloud impact on backup and disaster recovery

Backup specialist finds cloud eclipses on-site compute for all workloads while DR makes big strides in the cloud despite concerns about complexity and security Continue Reading

Disaster recovery for SMEs: Five key areas to consider

We look at key disaster recovery considerations for SMEs, including why backup is not enough, how to create a disaster recovery plan, best-practice DR testing and DR as a service Continue Reading

When long-term data archiving means 'forever'

Storage customers such as the German data processing service center GWDG have started to think about how they can archive data forever. It's challenging and complex, but possible. Continue Reading

Almost half unaware of GP data-sharing plans

Around half of adults in England – approximately 20 million people – remain unaware of the scope of the NHS GPDPR programme, prompting calls for a public education campaign Continue Reading

Five ways to ensure remote working security and compliance

A mix of on-site and remote working has become a fact of life for many organisations. We look at five key things you should consider to ensure compliance and security Continue Reading

Secureworks sets up in EU datacentre for XDR services

New datacentre location helps Secureworks’ customers meet EU data residency requirements Continue Reading

France TV repatriates backup and archive from public cloud

France Télévisions Publicité couldn’t always get to critical data, so decided to repatriate backup and archiving from the cloud to on-site locations, with help from a managed service Continue Reading

City of York picks Barracuda Networks for data protection

York Council needed to refresh its backup service to bring new security protections after it went ‘all-in’ on Microsoft Office 365 Continue Reading

Opera house shuns cloud for Nutanix and Rubrik hyper-converged infrastructure

The Royal Opera House considered moving all its infrastructure to the cloud, but a hybrid setup with Nutanix and Rubrik hyper-converged infrastructure came in 35% cheaper Continue Reading

UK taskforce calls for cutting GDPR protections

The UK’s Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform has recommended scrapping safeguards against automated decision-making contained in the General Data Protection Regulation Continue Reading

Europe’s proposed AI regulation falls short on protecting rights

The European Commission’s proposal for artificial intelligence regulation focuses on creating a risk-based, market-led approach replete with self-assessments, transparency procedures and technical standards, but critics warn it falls short of being able to protect people’s fundamental rights and mitigating the technology’s worst abuses Continue Reading

How the pandemic changed backup

The Covid-19 pandemic forced big changes in how people work – we look at impacts on backup, including increased reliance on the cloud, plus security and compliance vulnerabilities and ransomware Continue Reading

Cohesity brings DataProtect backup-as-a-service to Europe via AWS

Scale-out backup appliance pioneer adds backup-as-a-service from a virtual machine on customer premises Continue Reading

NHS Digital delays data collection plans until September

NHS Digital has postponed its proposed collection of GP data for two months, to allow more time for the public to understand the process and opt out if wanted Continue Reading

National data guardian calls for dialogue on NHS Digital GP plans

The UK’s national data guardian says it is important the public has clarity on how their confidential medical information will be used and kept secure under NHS data-sharing plans Continue Reading

EU privacy chief investigates use of US cloud services

Use of Amazon and Microsoft’s cloud services by public sector bodies in the European Union is being scrutinised by the bloc’s privacy watchdog Continue Reading

IBM pushes back against US government data requests

Technology giant IBM says the US government has ‘no jurisdiction’ to request data from its European entities Continue Reading

Exagrid pays $2.6m to Conti ransomware attackers

Backup appliance specialist hit by Conti ransomware in May with cyber criminals downloading employee and customer data, confidential contracts and source code Continue Reading

Loss of 150,000 police records made worse by management failures

The loss of 150,000 records from a number of national policing systems was caused by a human coding error, but made worse by process and management failures Continue Reading

Veeam bolsters portfolio to cover emerging workloads

The groundswell in containerisation and open-source hypervisors is behind Veeam’s recent move to enable backup and recovery of emerging workloads Continue Reading

Oil and gas firm halves backup licence cost with Hycu move

Summit E&P made a strategic move to Nutanix hyper-converged and away from NetApp and VMware and wanted backup that could handle virtual machines and physical servers Continue Reading

Reports of stolen Irish health service data being leaked online

Leaking of deeply confidential and personal information on patient healthcare marks a new low for the criminal Conti gang Continue Reading

Microsoft EU Data Boundary dubbed ‘smoke and mirrors’

Data protection experts claim Microsoft’s decision to create an EU Data Boundary is a tacit admission that it routinely transfers and processes the personal data of European citizens outside the bloc Continue Reading

Backup failure: Four key areas where backups go wrong

We look at the key ways that backups can fail – via software issues, hardware problems, trouble in the infrastructure and good old human error – and suggest ways to mitigate them Continue Reading

Leaky Azure storage account puts software developer IP at risk

Source code for multiple products was left exposed in an unsecured Microsoft Azure cloud storage account, say researchers, but attributing responsibility for the error has proved difficult Continue Reading

Cloud archiving: A perfect use case, but beware costs and egress issues

The advantages of cloud archiving are ease of use and being well-suited to potential latency issues, but IT teams need to be aware of costs and issues around moving data from and between clouds Continue Reading

AET gets Ctera to smooth hybrid cloud access to big files

Remote locations with unreliable WAN connections needed to share large files, which was a real headache until US engineering firm got Ctera edge filers with Azure cloud as a tier Continue Reading

Ctera KubeFiler to bring Kubernetes storage to its cloud gateways

KubeFiler uses the container storage interface to allow Kubernetes to access persistent storage as if it were from a local NAS device, and while keeping existing access profiles Continue Reading

Where now for storage? Hitachi, IBM and Pure Storage

Part II: Storage supplier strategy in the cloud era: Hitachi, IBM and Pure Storage. We snapshot the big six hardware makers, as they take things to the cloud and as-a-service models Continue Reading

Where now for storage? Dell EMC, NetApp and HPE

Part I: Storage supplier strategy in the cloud era: Dell EMC, NetApp and HPE. We snapshot the big six hardware makers, as they take things to the cloud and as-a-service models Continue Reading

Backup survey: UK councils’ downtimes five times longer than average

Backup product supplier Veeam’s freedom of information request finds councils’ average downtime is seven hours and that backup and disaster recovery testing is not done frequently Continue Reading

Backup appliances the hot topic for Pas-de-Calais fire brigade

With requirements for strict, long-duration backup and archiving, French fire brigade set out to replace optical media with a StorageCraft appliance and disaster-proof storage Continue Reading

The 3-2-1 backup rule: Has cloud made it obsolete?

The 3-2-1 backup rule was made for small-scale use in the pre-cloud era when tape still ruled. Is it relevant in the 2020s, or can we repurpose its fundamental principles? Continue Reading

IWM uses StorCycle to free capacity for all-flash SAN upgrade

Imperial War Museums set to embark on unstructured data archiving project that will archive cold data to tape and free up capacity for a move to IntelliFlash all-flash SAN Continue Reading

Survey: Backup failures hit a high as pandemic working hits home

Veeam survey finds distributed working plus operations that span on-prem and the cloud the background to high numbers of failures in backup and restore, with 40% of SLAs not met Continue Reading

Met Police chooses Capgemini as strategic IT infrastructure services provider

Capgemini has a history of providing the force with day-to-day technology services, and will now deliver its infrastructure services under the Pegasus programme Continue Reading

Five ways that disaster recovery changes in a pandemic

Covid-19 has changed IT. Previously, working remotely was a business continuity measure, but now it is the norm. That means disaster recovery has to adapt to new risks and new ways to respond Continue Reading

Veritas looks beyond NetBackup for growth in ASEAN

Veritas has seen increased demand for its availability tools as it looks to address backup and recovery requirements from cloud, database and VMware workloads Continue Reading

UK’s Arkivum up for €4.8m EU science data archive project

CERN-led multi-petabyte scale research data archive bid will use Google cloud and compete with AWS-based and open source designs from other providers Libnova and Onedata Continue Reading

SME backup: Card maker ditches tape-only for Nakivo 3-2-1 setup

IG Design Group gains a modern backup regime with data held on disk, in the cloud and long-term on tape in a move that has helped it to slash backup and restore times Continue Reading

Transport for NSW hit by Accellion breach

Australian state agency Transport for New South Wales is the latest victim of the supply chain attack against Accellion’s legacy file transfer system Continue Reading

Arcserve and StorageCraft merger aims for ‘single pane of glass’

Arcserve and StorageCraft bring a lot of similarities but enough differences for their backers to bet on with their merger, with unifying management between product sets the only priority currently stated Continue Reading

Veeam v11 adds continuous data protection and cloud archive

Backup specialist’s annual upgrade brings continuous data protection to offer better RPOs and RTOs than existing snapshot functionality and without impact on running processes Continue Reading

IXsystems: TrueNAS gets hyper-convergence

TrueNAS has added hyper-converged functionality to NAS and aims at the edge use cases left behind in the rush to the cloud Continue Reading

Executive interview: Tapping APAC’s storage potential

Lenovo’s head of storage in Asia-Pacific singles out the region’s market opportunities and predicts that the healthcare sector will go full-fledged with flash storage in the next year Continue Reading

C40, C60 R3, go! Pure adds to FlashArray//C QLC flash range

Hybrid storage killers: Pure Storage adds entry-level FlashArray//C40 R3 QLC array plus re-CPUed C60 R3 that will scale to 5PB or more Continue Reading

Cost-effective snapshot management tips and strategies

Snapshots may be an optimal way to copy and protect data, but they can lead to some unexpected consequences. Find out what those are and how to avoid them. Continue Reading

CW Benelux: Is reluctance to report cyber crimes in the Netherlands helping the criminals get away?

According to an academic study in the Netherlands, only one in seven Dutch people report a cyber crime to the police when it happens - feeling it is better to sort the problem out themselves because they don’t think the police will do anything. This is storing up trouble as cyber crime is an increasing problem in the country. Also in this issue, read why Dutch bank ABN Amro is selling its head office. Continue Reading