Building Resilience Against Ransomware with AWS Backup

Key Takeaways

1. Cyber Resilience is Key

   • The key to cyber resilience is having a robust plan in place to recover quickly and minimize the impact of any cyber events.
   • Ransomware and malware events are becoming more common, and organizations need to be prepared to recover efficiently.

2. Importance of Backups

   • Backups are crucial for ensuring swift recovery, minimizing downtime, and reducing data loss in the event of a ransomware incident.
   • Backup strategies should be carefully planned to protect against evolving threats, such as backups being targeted by malware.

3. AWS Backup Capabilities

   • AWS Backup provides a centralized, policy-based system for taking backups across various AWS resources.
   • Key capabilities include:
     • Logically air-gapped vaults for secure, immutable backups
     • Automated restore testing to validate backup recoverability
     • Audit reporting to demonstrate compliance with regulations

4. Comprehensive Recovery Planning

   • Effective recovery planning involves more than just backup strategies.
   • It requires alignment across teams, incident response procedures, and ongoing testing/training to ensure readiness.
   • The goal is to minimize the "mean time to normal" – the time it takes to restore business operations after a cyber event.

5. Maturity Model Approach

   • Organizations can start with a baseline backup approach and then iterate towards more advanced capabilities over time.
   • This allows for immediate protection while enabling gradual improvements to cyber resilience.

Detailed Summary

The Cyber Threat Landscape

• Ransomware and malware events are becoming more prevalent and sophisticated, targeting not just primary data but also backup systems.
• There is a persistent and ever-evolving threat landscape, making all businesses vulnerable to potential cyber incidents.
• Effective cyber resilience requires alignment across teams (security, data, backup) and well-defined procedures to respond quickly to threats.
• The impact of a ransomware event goes beyond just data loss, with potential financial, reputational, and regulatory consequences.

The Role of Backups

• Backups are essential for recovering from cyber events and minimizing the mean time to normal operations.
• Threat modeling is crucial to understand the specific risks and mitigation strategies for your environment.
• Industry-standard backup strategies, such as the 3-2-1-1 approach, help ensure data recoverability and logical isolation.
• Backup security is paramount, as malware can target and compromise backup systems.

AWS Backup Capabilities

• AWS Backup provides a centralized, policy-driven system for taking backups across various AWS resources.
• The introduction of logically air-gapped vaults ensures the immutability and security of backups.
• Automated restore testing validates the recoverability of backups, while Backup Audit Manager enables compliance reporting.

Comprehensive Recovery Planning

• Recovery planning goes beyond just backup strategies and involves alignment across teams, incident response procedures, and ongoing testing/training.
• The goal is to minimize the "mean time to normal" – the time it takes to restore business operations after a cyber event.
• Recovery planning follows a phased approach, starting with foundational services, then dependent services, and finally the minimum viable company.
• Continuous improvement and a maturity model approach allow organizations to gradually enhance their cyber resilience.

Maturity Model Approach

• Organizations can start with a baseline backup approach and then iterate towards more advanced capabilities over time.
• The baseline approach focuses on automated, scheduled backups aligned with RPO requirements.
• Advanced approaches introduce logical isolation of backups, protection mechanisms, and automated restore testing.
• The ultimate state of "advanced plus" includes features like automated restore orchestration and extended forensics.