The company suffers downtime as a result of all of these “disasters”. In a recent survey, downtime cost was calculated using a formula in which minutes of downtime were multiplied by the cost-per-minute. For large enterprises, that equals $9000 per minute.
They vary from one estimate to another. The Atlassian website indicates that downtime can cost Fortune 1,000 companies up to $1 million per hour. When it comes to global giants such as Amazon, whose entire business model is dependent on uptime, the estimated cost of downtime is around $13.22 million per hour.
For six to seven hours, the social network Facebook and its subsidiaries, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Mapillary, and Oculus, were unavailable worldwide at 15:39 UTC on October 4, 2021.
Downtime causes more damages, however than just revenue losses. As well as causing brand reputation damage and customer churn, disruptions affect customer productivity. The estimate does not take into account damage to the IT department, PR, social media, employee, and customer service departments, nor does it take into account the legal department’s involvement in any resulting settlements or claims. Costs that are more difficult to measure may outweigh direct revenue losses in the long run.
The loss of records and other data is also because companies find it hard to go off-line for long periods, losing revenue and being unable to capitalize on new opportunities. The businesses are at a competitive disadvantage compared to their competitors who have a proactive disaster recovery plan in place.
Disaster recovery plans in Data Centers:
- Fill up generators with fuel
- Have fuel trucks waiting at facilities to deliver fuel to generators in advance
- Reorganize the shift schedules and put staff on standby
- Book nearby hotel rooms for customers and staff who may need to be at the data center
- Check all UPS and backup systems
- Assist customers in activating their disaster recovery plans
When enterprises work with data center providers that use these tactics as part of a larger plan, disaster recovery plans can be implemented and business continuity can be maintained throughout.
A golden example: California
Some enterprises in California, for instance, have employed build-to-suit options for their data storage needs because of geographic challenges. These aren’t your typical shrink-wrapped solutions. This would be a perfect addition to a disaster recovery plan. In such cases, proximity and location are crucial.
For example, in California, data must be stored outside of floodplains, but still close enough to major urban areas like San Francisco or Silicon Valley to maintain low latency. Additionally, a nearby source of sustainable energy must be found. Being close to the source is best, but staying a distance away is better.
In an increasingly connected business ecosystem, uptime and downtime are key indicators of risk.
It is common for data centers to use redundant infrastructure that ensures high data availability to lower their risk. Furthermore, these centers are equipped with the necessary connectivity to facilitate hybrid cloud backup solutions capable of meeting recovery time objectives.
The data center plays an important role in this process by enabling businesses to ensure uptime reliability and data integrity through disaster mitigation measures.
Business continuity solutions tailored to your needs
When contemplating a data center, an enterprise must consider business continuity – and all of its options – from colocation, joint ventures, powered shells, build-to-suits, and sale/leaseback. As part of the enterprise’s disaster recovery planning, it must also examine wholesale data center real estate options that offer the appropriate disaster recovery models.
The data center team can then customize specific file systems, all of which require different handling.
In the event of a disaster, companies can no longer afford to wait until things go wrong to establish a plan for restoring their essential systems. A solid disaster recovery plan becomes more than a nice-to-have outline when it is tied to the data center’s business continuity principles. It becomes a mission-critical tool for data centers and their clients.
Ransomware
One alarming trend is the use of ransomware to attack supply chains. We will continue to see this threat through 2022. An attack on US software provider Kaseya in July affected 1500 businesses on five continents, from supermarkets in Sweden to kindergartens in New Zealand.
It was a very interesting case in which the cybercriminal attacked Kaseya-related organizations. In this scenario, you may believe you have a trusted relationship with your supplier, but if that supplier is compromised, they can also infiltrate your network.
An effective defense strategy and a remediation strategy can help minimize the effects of a ransomware attack, but there is no foolproof way to prevent one. A few of the key tips are testing defense systems constantly, performing simulation exercises, using strong passwords and multi-factor authorization, and performing daily offsite backups.
By creating a business continuity plan, you can ensure the security of your data and services. For instance, suppose your email service went down. How would you handle the situation? Would you be able to communicate by phone?”
It is “massively insecure” to use remote access tools. Take a zero-trust network approach – assume that you must authenticate people once they enter the network and do not rely on the firewall to protect you. You can do anything on the network due to this incorrect assumption. All types of threats to your business are considered by our managed security services. Furthermore, we make sure that your software is always current by using our resources. Therefore, we often prevent online threats before they occur.
How effective are the current initiatives?
Australian governments are starting to talk about ransomware differently and note several positive initiatives, such as the Ransomware Action Plan. We believe, however, that tackling the scourge of ransomware will require a greater investment. There is a huge global issue that requires an appropriate level of response. We spend a lot of money on submarines, but in many ways, the war has shifted to digital – and expenditures have not shifted similarly.
Currently, the Critical Infrastructure Bill is making its way through Parliament that would grant the government extraordinary powers of intervention in the event of cyberattacks on critical infrastructure.
It’s a good lever to raise standards, and Australia would be in line with the US and UK in accepting it as a very serious problem.
What are your chances of stopping these attackers? You are unlikely to succeed. Nevertheless, you can help protect an organization. Ransom payments are also being pushed for mandatory reporting. To anonymize the data, you would need a layer of abstraction to prevent repeat attacks on organizations known to pay.
According to the Australian government, ransoms should not be paid. Organizations are paying ransoms, however. We need to figure out how many organizations are paying a ransom quietly to determine the scale of the problem.
