Object Storage: Affordable Data Security Amid “Cloud-flation” Budget Constraints

Rising inflation is growing at its fastest pace in over 40 years, quickly increasing the cost of cloud services and tightening organizations’ IT budgets. More money spent on cloud services means less budget spent elsewhere, thus presenting the dilemma: sacrifice security or your IT budget? The answer is neither, thanks to object storage, says Anthony Cusimano, director of technical marketing at Object First.

The looming recession – it’s a topic we’ve read about in the headlines over the past few months. We’ll likely continue to witness the side effects of soaring costs and their impact on businesses and consumers alike in the coming months. While rising inflation is bound to impact every cornerstone of an organization’s business model, an area that calls for particular attention is the cloud, cloud cost utilization, and tools leveraged in support of the cloud. 

Why is this area of particular interest? Until now, the industry has only spoken of the cloud in relation to its exponential growth in tandem with the ways in which major cloud players are making concerted efforts to reduce the cost of its adoption. The pandemic’s influence on cloud migration to accelerate and meet growing digital transformation demands only underscored this growth.

But now, rising inflation is growing at its fastest pace in over 40 yearsOpens a new window , quickly increasing the cost of cloud services and, as a result, tightening organizations’ IT budgets as they are left dealing with what’s been referred to as “cloud-flation.” Coming to terms with the new realities of cloud computing economics, such as Google’s announced price hikesOpens a new window , is no small task. Simply put, more money spent on cloud services means less budget spent elsewhere. 

As business leaders work to accommodate these budget cuts, it’s paramount that security features (and corresponding tech hardware) remain off the cutting room floor. Arguably, ensuring robust security and data protection amid “cloud-flation” IT budget woes should be prioritized to safeguard an organization’s survival through the recession and for years to come.

See More: 2022: The Year Object Storage and Kubernetes Put the Multi-Cloud Within Reach 

Sacrificing Security to Balance Your IT Budget

Ransomware has become one of the most significant cybersecurity issues globally. Compromising security and data protection as a budget item is dangerous – the more valuable data becomes, the more eager malicious actors are to leverage it for a massive payday. To ensure an organization is prepared to defend itself against the evolving threat of a ransomware attack, it must prioritize its security needs. This means ensuring network traffic is monitored, permissions are strict, and zero-trust strategies are implemented to safeguard personal and company data. 

While these are great first steps, we’ve witnessed time and again the ways in which bad actors find new entry points to deploy attacks. In truth, many ransomware programs use hardware backdoors and holes in security systems or remain vulnerable to insider threats via disgruntled employees and (more often) to social engineering via non-disgruntled employees. As ransomware attacks continue to rise in volume, bad actors consistently target primary data and data backups more often than ever. That’s why additional layers of security are essential, no matter how proactive a business is. Multiple co-located backup copies and detection and remediation capabilities are critical to ensure resilience; therefore, forfeiting data protection cannot be an option. 

So, when it comes to meeting budget restraints, can business leaders sacrifice security to balance their IT budget? The answer is no. Decisions should be less about balancing IT budgets by cutting back on security. Instead, they should be centered around ensuring an organization has enough security measures in place in an affordable manner, so that ransomware attacks will not leave businesses exposed and vulnerable to attackers.

The Impact of Weakened Protection in a Data-centric Workplace 

A recent studyOpens a new window commissioned by data protection company Veeam revealed that the majority (76%) of cyber victims successfully targeted by ransomware paid the ransom to end an attack and recover their data. Despite finding that 52% of respondents paid the ransom and could recover data, the results also showed that 24% were still unable to recover the lost data. This means that one out of three organizations that move forward with paying the ransom end up with no recovered data and an expanding gap in their budget. 

We’ve reached a point where data is more valuable than ever, especially as organizations’ data creation and consumption continue to grow. With increased data consumption comes a need for increased data protection. A concern that was once a director- or VP-level decision now belongs in boardroom discussions for every business, large or small. Ransomware attacks aren’t going away anytime soon, and the tactics bad actors use to deploy them are becoming more sophisticated. Therefore, organizations must back up their data and ensure that their backup provider and storage ecosystem is equally resilient. If not taken seriously, an organization opens itself up to complete encryption, routine data leaks, or worse – loss of the business’s data and associated backups, which remain unrecoverable. 

The cost to recover from a ransomware attack will be a more considerable financial burden on an organization than any initial costs on backup tools that are protected on immutable storage. The choice is simple: invest in the right tools today to ensure data protection ahead of the recession or pay that amount tenfold when (not if) a ransomware attack hits.

Finding the Resolve: Object-based Storage Backup 

To ensure an organization maintains a protected backup ecosystem, it must diligently research backup providers and ensure that the chosen provider emphasizes the importance of security first and foremost. While it’s impossible to guarantee that software is completely protected against evolving threats, implementing a proper and secured 3-2-1 backup strategy with a provider that is vigilant about resiliency can be the difference between paying ransom in hopes of retrieving data and ensuring data will always remain available – regardless of an attack. Even more important is ensuring your backup storage supports true immutability, keeping all backup data stored untouchable for a defined period. By implementing this security strategy, organizations never have to question whether they are in control of their data despite bad actors working endlessly to take it away.  

In today’s cloud-dominant environment, object-based backup storage must become the go-to for data protection because it provides inherent advantages such as scalability, availability, reliability, security, and immutability – all at a low cost for large data volumes. It guarantees that data is untouchable and safe against ransomware and its optimized performance enables the ability to run failed workloads directly from the backup. This ensures companies are “business as usual” within minutes during any outages – ransomware-related or otherwise. Thanks to the scale-out approach inherent and integral to any object storage, businesses can pay for the storage space they need at a given moment and nothing more. 

It’s a saving grace for companies that recognize the importance of protecting sensitive information as we all work towards an economic rebound.

Do you think affordable object storage is the answer to managing security risks better? Let us know on FacebookOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , and LinkedInOpens a new window .

MORE ON OBJECT STORAGE:

• Object Storage Model: Key Characteristics and Applications for Cloud Success
• Object Storage: How to Overcome Security Threats to Unstructured Data
• Why Object Storage Is Key in the Cloud Operating Model

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