Sergey Nivens - Fotolia
Nakivo to use AWS Object Lock as anti-ransomware tool
Backup software maker leverages AWS Object Lock’s ability to create immutable WORM repositories as a means of helping organisations protect against malicious deletion or corruption
Backup software maker Nakivo has added ransomware protection that makes use of Amazon S3 Object Lock, which allows use of an S3 repository to which customers can set data immutability for a custom duration.
The addition to Nakivo functionality comes as part of its latest 10.2 version.
Nakivo was founded in 2012 and started out by specialising in virtual machine backup. In fact, its version 1.0 offered VMware support and installation on Windows.
It also targeted cloud integration, with another early version in 2013 offering one-click AWS integration, then multi-tenancy and self-service features in 2014.
Key among the latest additions is the ability to write Nakivo backups to Amazon S3 using object locks. This is aimed at helping customers avoid the effects of ransomware on backups.
This version has also added Sharepoint online backup, which adds to Nakivo’s cloud-to-cloud backup functionality, which already includes Exchange Online and Microsoft 365 backup.
Also new is Tenant Resource Allocation, a feature aimed at service provider customers.
Amazon S3 Object Lock functionality uses write-once-read-many (WORM) functionality to make objects immutable for as long as required. That duration is set by the customer and cannot be shortened or disabled.
Read more on backup and ransomware
- Top five ways backup can protect against ransomware. Ransomware threatens to put your data beyond reach, so the best way to prepare is to have good-quality data you can restore from backup. We look at the key things to consider.
- How can your ransomware backup strategy improve? It’s time to review your strategy for ransomware backup and recovery. While there are standard ways to protect your organisation, newer technologies could save your business.
The idea is that data can be stored in an unchangeable state that protects it against ransomware that would otherwise delete or corrupt it.
S3 Object Lock protects objects from being overwritten for as long as the protection is applied, by either assigning a Retain Until Date or a Legal Hold to an object.
Ransomware protection is generally focused on identifying potential threats by examining packets, often including use of artificial intelligence to compare with a large database of digital signatures.
Backup can be part of an anti-ransomware strategy by having critical data, systems and resources backed up to an alternative location.
Nakivo can be deployed on Windows/Windows Server, Linux and Synology NAS, will support VMware, Hyper-V and Nutanix backup, and can use the AWS, Azure and Google clouds as targets, with some cloud-to-cloud backup also possible, for example running from an AWS instance.
