Dell Report: Majority of Organizations Uncertain They Can Recover From Ransomware Attack

The Dell Technologies 2021 Global Data Protection Index (GDPI) findings reveal organizations are facing several data protection challenges driven by the constant threat of ransomware and the consumption of emerging technologies such as cloud-native applications, Kubernetes containers and artificial intelligence.

According to a recent IDC survey, more than one-third of organizations WW have experienced a ransomware attack or breach that blocked access to systems or data in the previous twelve months. ⁽ⁱ⁾ To help address these rising – and seemingly inevitable – issues, Dell Technologies, Inc. is introducing software and services to accelerate VM backup data availability, simplify management of large data sets, and maintain business continuity while alleviating dependencies on day-to-day cyber recovery operations.

“While ransomware attacks can be devastating for people and businesses, accepting defeat as a foregone conclusion is not the answer,” said Jeff Boudreau, president and GM, infrastructure solutions group. “We understand the stakes have never been higher, and the task of protecting data has never been more complex. As the leading provider of data protection hardware and software, our portfolio addresses this growing challenge by helping customers adopt a holistic cybersecurity and data protection strategy to identify, protect, detect, respond and recover from ransomware and other cyberattacks.“

GDPI findings reveal increased state of complexity around data protection
The 2021 Dell Technologies GDPI survey of 1,000 global IT decision makers shows organizations are combatting continued data growth and increased data protection complexities. The study found that organizations are managing more than 10x the amount of data than they did 5 years ago – from 1.45PB in 2016 to 14.6PB in 2021. Additionally, 82% of respondents are concerned their organization’s existing data protection solutions won’t be able to meet all future business challenges. These concerns are well-founded, with more than 30% reporting data loss in the last year and nearly half (45%) experiencing unplanned system downtime.

GDPI findings include:

• 62% are concerned their existing data protection measures may not be sufficient to cope with malware and ransomware threats, while 74% agree they have increased exposure to data loss from cyber threats with the growth of employees working from home.

• 67% lack confidence that all their business-critical data can be recovered in the event of a destructive cyberattack or data loss.

• 63% believe emerging technologies – such as cloud-native applications, Kubernetes containers, AI and ML pose a risk to data protection, and the lack of data protection solutions for newer technologies was one of the top 3 data protection challenges for organizations.

• On average, the cost of data loss in the last 12 months is approaching 4x higher for organizations using multiple data protection vendors as compared to those using a single-vendor approach.

Delivering data protection and trusted cyber resiliency
The company is addressing the evolving IT landscape with solutions that help organizations protect traditional and modern workloads with a singular approach. In multi-cloud data protection, it protects about 7EB of data across all major public cloud providers. ⁽ⁱⁱ⁾ Through constant innovation, agile engineering and tight integration with VMware and other industry leaders, it continues to be the leading provider of data protection appliances and software globally. ⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾ the company offers one of a portfolios for cyber resilience at the edge, core data centers and multi-cloud environments, delivered with solutions such as Dell EMC PowerProtect Cyber Recovery and PowerScale with Superna Eyeglass Ransomware Defender.

New software and managed services offerings include:

• PowerProtect Data Manager adds Transparent Snapshots to give organizations a new way to help protect their VMware VMs at scale. By simplifying and automating VM image-level backups and requiring less infrastructure, Transparent Snapshots deliver up to 5x faster backups and up to a 5x reduction in VM latency, ^(iv) helping organizations ensure availability of VM data effectively and efficiently.

• PowerProtect appliances with Smart Scale helps organizations manage multiple data protection appliances at exabyte scale, allowing IT staff to make informed decisions about their capacity needs and keep up with data growth. With Smart Scale, customers can configure multiple appliances as a single pool giving them the ability to see and manage large data sets in one entity – as many as 32 PowerProtect appliances and more than 3EB of logical capacity. Organizations can maximize resources and save costs with proactive monitoring and simplified management of backup data.

• Managed Services for Cyber Recovery solution helps organizations drive consistent operations and reduce risk of data loss by having the company’s experts manage day-to-day cyber recovery vault operations and support recovery activities. These managed services build on the firm‘s portfolio of cyber recovery consulting, deployment, and support services, helping customers protect and manage this critical capability.

“Transparent Snapshots in PowerProtect Data Manager simplifies backing up our virtual machines using less infrastructure and without impact to the production environment. By removing the need to deploy or manage proxies to move data, our virtual machines can be backed up faster, saving us time,” said Drew Hills, infrastructure analyst, IT systems, information technology, University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia.

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“We are pleased to see Dell Technologies deliver the Transparent Snapshots innovation in PowerProtect Data Manager to help our mutual customers simplify and speed data protection,” said Lee Caswell, VP marketing, cloud platform business unit, VMware, Inc.

“As ransomware and other cyberattacks continue to evolve so does the need to outpace these threats with innovation,” said Phil Goodwin, VP research, IDC. “Dell Technologies’ new advancements in software and services are designed to help organizations increase their ability to recover business critical data from a cyberattack with the least amount of disruption.“

Availability:

• PowerProtect Data Manager with Transparent Snapshots will be globally available this quarter at no additional cost to customers with existing maintenance contracts.

• PowerProtect appliances with Smart Scale is in technology preview today and is expected to be globally available in 1H22.

• Managed Services for Cyber Recovery Solutions are available.

Additional resources
2021 Dell Technologies Global Data Protection Index Snapshot for an infographic and links to previous year’s findings
Blog: A New Dawn for Data Protection Innovation
Modern Cyber Security for Enhanced IT Resiliency Security Solutions
Gauge Your Cyber Resiliency with the Dell Technologies Cyber Resiliency Assessment
About 2021 Dell Technologies Global Data Protection Index: Now in its fifth edition, Dell Technologies commissioned Vanson Bourne for the 2021 Global Data Protection Index. Between February 2021 to April 2021, 1,000 IT decision makers were surveyed across 15 countries and 14 industries from organizations with 250+ employees to better understand their data protection environments.

^{(i) IDC Survey, IDC’s 2021 Ransomware Study: Where You Are Matters! August 2021.
(ii) Based on Dell Technologies analysis, June 2021
(iii) Based on combined revenue in 2021 Q1 from IDC’s Quarterly Purpose Built Backup Appliance Tracker, 2021 Q1 with select Storage Software segments from the IDC WW Storage Software and Cloud Services QView, 1Q21
(iv) PowerProtect Data Manager 19.9 with Transparent Snapshots backup performance and VM latency performance compared to PowerProtect Data Manger with VADP backup performance and VM latency performance. Based on Dell internal testing, August 2021.}