NetApp pioneers AI-driven cyber-resilience capabilities

NetApp, the data infrastructure company renowned for its intelligence, has announced the development of new cyber-resilience capabilities. These are aimed at providing swiftest possible response and recovery in a likely event of a cyber-attack. Given the UK Government's estimation of 2.39 million cyber-attacks in 2023 and the escalating rise of AI-enhanced ransomware, businesses require resilient assets at every stage. NetApp is breaking new ground by incorporating AI and ML into enterprise storage to counter real-time ransomware attacks and fortify both primary and secondary data for straightforward recovery.

The company unveiled its cyber-resilience capabilities geared towards equipping customers with improved tools for the protection and recovery of data in the wake of ransomware threats. Highlighting how cybercriminals target critical infrastructure, and supply chains knowing how operational disruptions can incur huge costs, Forrester reports reveal an urgent need for effective solutions. With 87 percent of executives at C-suite and board level ranking ransomware as a high or top priority according to the 2023 Data Complexity report by NetApp, this is a serious concern. When cybercriminals breach perimeters, networks and identities, organisations' storage becomes their last line of defence for safeguarding their critical data. NetApp's updates geared towards cyber-resilience offer solutions that protect data and rapidly recover lost data while ensuring operations resume normalcy swiftly.

Mignona Cote, CSO at NetApp, clarifies, "By leveraging the power of AI, NetApp is adopting an aggressive, proactive approach towards shielding our customers' data against cyber threats. We are proud to be the first storage vendor offering an explicit and financially backed guarantee for our data storage solutions against ransomware. Our recent updates further underscore this leadership by rendering data defence comprehensive, continuous, and simple for our customers."

NetApp is setting the standard in the design of data storage and management systems, optimising data protection and security whilst adhering to data governance and compliance standards. Notably, the integration of ONTAP Autonomous Ransomware Protection with Artificial Intelligence (ARP/AI) is pioneering a generation of real-time defence against enterprise storage ransomware. NetApp plans to adopt adaptive AI/ML models built directly into enterprise storage, aiming at file-level signals to detect even the newest ransomware attacks.

Further enhancements include the introduction of NetApp BlueXP Ransomware Protection that offers a single control plane that smartly oversees and enables an end-to-end, workload-centric ransomware defence. Notably, NetApp's Keystone Ransomware Recovery Guarantee extends to include the storage-as-a-service offering, NetApp Keystone. "Our approach of delivering a secure, unified storage infrastructure makes storage foundational for ransomware protection, reducing the burden on cybersecurity teams", says Archana Venkatraman, Research Director, Cloud Data Management, IDC.

Derek Elbert, Solutions Architect at WWT, acknowledges this: "Using NetApp in our Advanced Technology Center, we significantly simplified our replication process... NetApp's solutions enabled us to establish suitable recovery policies... transforming how we manage disaster recovery for VMware."

NetApp's latest cyber resiliency advances empower organisations to preemptively address cybersecurity threats in complex hybrid and multicloud settings, utilising AI to identify threats and prevent disruptions. The company's mission is to transform their customers' data infrastructure to actualise their business potential.