Storage is an integral part of every organization’s infrastructure. Cybersecurity is a vital element of every organization’s strategy. Yet somehow the two are rarely connected—and the lack of storage security is a gap that’s putting organizations at risk.
When it comes to preventing hackers from getting at their data, most organizations focus their security posture on protecting their perimeter and endpoints, and on analyzing traffic and user activity trends to detect anomalies. Today, IT leaders understand that attackers may eventually slip past even the best security protocols. That leaves storage and backup systems as the last line of defense. And attackers know it.
Through a Hacker’s Eyes
Look through a hacker’s eyes and you’ll see how appealing a target storage is. You could tap into the storage or backup plane to obtain a copy of the active directory server and spin it up in a testbed or sandbox environment—which probably is far less rigorously controlled. Now you can fire up an unmonitored VM using the copies, and break your way into production data. If the organization also uses cloud storage for offsite backup, you might try to alter the backup policy to…
