Waste Industries and Cengage Customers of Actifio

Actifio, Inc. is helping a growing number of enterprises achieve cyber resilience.

Waste Industries USA, Inc. and Cengage, Inc. are among the latest of Actifio customers confronting cybersecurity threats such as ransomware and rogue users destroying backups head-on with Actifio’s pioneering data-centric platform. Built on Actifio’s patented data virtualization and OnVault technologies for high business resiliency and availability, these cyber resiliency capabilities deliver tamper-proof, immutable point-in-time versions of enterprise application data and, in the event of a cyber-attack, instant recovery to a safe point-in-time.

Protection against cyber threats is a critical business imperative for every enterprise, and exposure to these threats continues to grow. Ransomware damages reached $5 billion in 2017, up 15x in two years, according to CyberSecurity Ventures. A company is hit with ransomware every 40s, according to endpoint security vendor Barkly. The traditional approach has been to repeatedly layer new network-based security protection tools that serve as temporary measures until a newer technique is employed by attackers.

Actifio delivers a solution that protects the heart of every enterprise: data. It is enabling an industry data-centric approach to cybersecurity that ensures this strategic asset is protected regardless of evolving threats.

• Actifio Data Virtualization technology reduces the data surface area of attack by over 90%, narrowing down the window for a cyber or ransomware attack threat.
• OnVault technology provides air-gap and data immutability between the production data and resiliency copies by creating an immutable backup copy on low-cost object storage, on-premises or in the cloud, ensuring that applications and businesses are highly available and instantly recoverable from any cyber-attack.
• For long-term data retention, encryption at rest, encryption in transit, role-based access control, and audit tracking, data immutability ensures enterprises satisfy their compliance needs.
• The company provides an approach that gives users the freedom of self-serve data access, while providing operations teams the complete visibility of where data is, who is accessing it and the control to revoke access at any point.
• The platform enables compliance with the Sheltered Harbor, Appendix J requirements for financial services businesses by enabling data immutability, HA and fast recovery in the event of a cyber-attack.
• The ability to recover applications to a safe point-in-time version within minutes is the most effective way to render ransomware attacks irrelevant.
• Tamper-proof, immutable data repository protects organizations from threats by internal bad actors attempting attacks on enterprise data.

Waste Industries is a provider of non-hazardous solid waste recycling, collection and disposal services, and one of the top 10 haulers in the US.

Cengage is a provider of digital learning solutions that propel students toward a brighter future.

Both customers rely on Actifio to reduce security risks and improve their overall cyber resiliency. They were able to curb security risks, especially ransomware attacks, by reducing the data threat surface area and instantly recovering the business to a safe point-in-time version.

“We knew we were in need of a solution that promoted greater resiliency,” said Hubert Barkley, VP of IT services, Waste Industries, “This opened the door for change, particularly in the security space. By implementing Actifio, we were able to curb security risk, especially ransomware attacks, which has proven key in our overall growth as a company.“

“As a leader in the digital learning space, propelling learning with digital materials, we needed a reliable, secure data solution to help aid our transition to a fully digital enterprise,” said Jim Chilton, CIO, Cengage. “Actifio has exceeded our expectations in helping us digitally transform, with the added benefits of curbing ransomware attacks and taking all concern about cybersecurity threats out of the picture.“

To hear how IBM Security relies on Actifio to deliver for its customers, this brief video from theCube explains it. For a brief video demo from Actifio’s chief security officer showing software in action rendering a ransomware attack harmless in minutes, go here.

Steve Duplessie, founder and senior analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group, said: “Ransomware isn’t just a buzzword.  We know that 22% of organizations came under attack weekly in 2017.  In retail, attacks occur daily.  You won’t keep bad guys out – you can only mitigate the damage they can do by being ready to respond – and Actifio’s solution enables you to almost instantly get back to a safe state with known good data – and run your applications just as fast as you did before.  ‘Instant on’ is a primary benefit to their Data as a Service platform.“

Ash Ashutosh, founder and CEO, Actifio, said: “Our mission is to enable enterprises to deliver data as a strategic asset. Ensuring data is safe and recoverable amidst rising cybersecurity and ransomware attacks is a critical step in this process. Rather than the traditional network-based approach of securing an enterprise, we are delivering a pioneering data-centric approach that protects and instantly recovers what really matters: Data. Immutability of data from attacks, internal or external, combined with the ability to instantly recover to a safe point-in-time is key to high business availability and meeting compliance requirements, even in the face of malicious attacks.“