Nutanix has announced additional ransomware protections in the company’s cloud platform to help enterprises prevent, detect and recover against ransomware attacks across multiple cloud environments.
These include new threat monitoring and detection, as well as more granular data replication and robust access controls, all natively built into the Nutanix stack.
As cyber attacks are becoming even more common due to the rise of remote work, these capabilities make it easier to implement security and business continuity best practices at the infrastructure level, instead of relying on a complex matrix of bolt-on security products.
Rajiv Mirani, Chief Technology Officer at Nutanix said, “CIOs and CISOs know that there is no one solution that provides 100% protection against ransomware or other types of malware attacks, and the current remote and hybrid work models widen an enterprise’s attack surface.”
“Enterprises need a defense in depth approach to security, starting with their IT infrastructure. However, the right security tools need to also be simple and seamless to implement,” added Mirani.
According to a recent Gartner, in 2020 there have been swift changes to threats with increased remote work and targeted malware campaigns that take advantage of worldwide events, such as COVID-19.
The report notes that ransomware has evolved beyond the commodity and new strains make prevention and planning more important than ever to prevent ransomware attacks.
Organisations, especially those with large remote user populations or hybrid work environments, can no longer rely on a single action or tool to protect themselves. They need to ensure their IT infrastructure allows them to best respond to these incidents, says the report.
Detect and Recover From Network and Data Threats
The Nutanix cloud platform now delivers anomaly detection based on machine learning and IP reputation services with the company’s security networking operations and monitoring solution, Flow Security Central, a feature with Nutanix Flow.
Flow Security Central helps identify known attack vectors, including potential ransomware, at the network level before reaching the application and data layers.
Specifically, it now monitors networks for anomalies, malicious behaviour, as well as common network attacks that propagate by searching for additional vulnerable targets and also monitors endpoints to identify traffic coming from disreputable locations
Closer to the application layer, the Nutanix cloud platform now also includes native ransomware detection for file storage services within Nutanix Files.
Protect Data and Applications
To further protect application data from ransomware attacks, the Nutanix cloud platform now includes new features within the object storage solution, Nutanix Objects. Objects includes more granular permissions to access object data for primary and secondary storage.
Nutanix Objects now offers the ability to configure Write Once Read Many (WORM) policies for individual files and objects selected by an IT team to help guard against unauthorized deletion or encryption of data, thwarting many common ransomware attacks.
Objects now also provides data access permissions at a granular bucket level so IT administrators can better secure multi-tenant environments and also the Nutanix platform now delivers support for Microsoft Windows Credential Guard for virtual machines and virtual desktops running on the AHV hypervisor.
Ensure Business Continuity
While detection and prevention are both key aspects of an effective strategy to protect against malware and ransomware, all companies should have a plan to ensure business continuity in the event of an attack.
Nutanix Mine, the company’s secondary storage solution, now provides direct backup to Objects when using Mine in conjunction with solutions from partner HYCU Inc. This means all ransomware protection natively available in Objects, such as immutability and WORM, will also be applied to this secondary storage solution.
