In this episode, we look at the latest Ransomware Trends Report from Veeam, which gives us a view into the sobering world of ransomware attacks and the critical lessons they teach us about cyber defense. Join W. Curtis Preston (Mr. Backup) and Prasanna Malaiyandi, as they break down the key insights from the report. We explore the ruthless tactics of ransomware operators, the eye-opening stats on recovery time, and the evolving strategies of cyber insurers. From the importance of robust password management and multi-factor authentication to the strategies for safeguarding your backup server, we lay out a battle plan to protect your digital fortress. Tune in to discover why ransomware isn't just a threat—it's a wake-up call for businesses everywhere to bolster their defenses and emerge stronger against the rising tide of cyber threats. Your data's future might just depend on it.

In this episode, W. Curtis Preston and Prasanna Malaiyandi are joined by Eric Olden, the CEO of Strata Identity. With over 25 years of experience in the cybersecurity industry, Eric sheds light on the concept of Identity Orchestration and how it addresses the complexities of modern identity management in multi-cloud environments. He discusses the evolution of technology consumption, the philosophy of "bought not sold," and the creation of a new product category in the world of identity management. Eric explains how Strata Identity's platform acts as an abstraction layer, allowing organizations to seamlessly integrate and switch between different identity providers without rewriting applications. He also shares insights on modernization, just-in-time provisioning, and the benefits of the open free IDQL standard. Don't miss this engaging discussion about identity orchestration and its role in simplifying the management of identities across diverse cloud ecosystems.

Our guest this week is a specialist at offensive cybersecurity; that is, they keep you safe by attacking you and showing you your vulnerabilities. They're a red team.  We've got the leader of their red team, Duanne Laflotte, to help us understand how hackers think – and what we can do to stop them.  He confirmed some of the recommendations we often make (Ahem: password managers good), but showed us some defenses aren't that helpful. A particularly relevant part to our backup audience is what he told us about the vulnerabilities of our backup system.  At least one of them Mr. Backup had never thought of.  Duanne is fun and scary all at the same time.  I know this will be one of our top episodes this year.

Nothing tells the story like a good story, right?  This week we have Mike Saylor, the CEO of Black Swan, a cybersecurity company.  Boy, has he been in the trenches.  He tells some great stories about responding to cyber attacks. They're great stories and he's a great storyteller.  We also learn about FBI Infragard, a partnership between the FBI and the private sector.  We hope you enjoy the episode.

This week the SEC has made a new rule that publicly traded companies must disclose any cyber attacks within four days.  What if you're not a publicly traded company in the US?  Should you reveal what happened to you?  We bring in a wireless cyber security expert, Scott Schober of Berkeley Varitronics Systems, to talk about this topic.  Closely related is also what should you do when you personally make a big mistake.  Should you tell your boss?  What if you're a boss and someone makes a mistake?  How should you respond?  We get into all of this and more in the week's exciting episode.

During this recording, Mr. Backup asked our guest how many backup systems that he had looked at had at least one critical security flaw, he said pretty much 100%. Holy. Cow. Doron Pinhas runs a company called Continuity Software, that does security assessments of storage and backup and recovery systems. They got the permission of some of their customers to anonymize and publish their findings, and the results were abysmal. (You can read the report yourself here.) He said it was extremely rare to find a backup environment that was properly configured from a security standpoint. He then went on to explain the kinds of things they look for, and how you can secure your storage and backup and recovery environments. He also explained how such environments are typically overlooked by most security scans! He said they have a lot of resources on their website to help you, and they also have automated tools that will ensure you stay secure once you zipped things up. If I were you, I'd check out those resources right now!

Krista Macomber, analyst from the Futurum Group, joins us this week to talk about a number of things, but one thing really bubbled up to the top: co-opting of marketing terms. That is, it's probably using terms to describe their product, because they think you want to hear them. Two big ones these days are "air gapped" and "immutable." Krista and Mr. Backup talk about what these terms really mean – and whether or not your product should be using them to describe their product. You may not get any answers from this episode, but your darn sure will get some questions to back to your backup vendor with.

Today we are proud to have as our guest, Zach Fuller, a founding partner of the Silent Sector, a cybersecurity firm -- and a former Green Beret who served in combat. We talk a little about how his service made him the person he is today, and how it lead him ultimately into helping people protect their own data. We talk about his top few things he wishes people would do to secure their environments (in addition to Mr. Backup's usual suggestions of password management, MFA, and patch management). we found Zach a very engaging person, and we know you'll learn a lot.

Our guest this week (Jim Love from the Hashtag Trending podcast and IT World Canada) touched on something we thought was profound. He felt that some organizations had what he called a "culture of recovery," meaning that they took recovery into account in all aspects of the org. He explained how he fostered this in companies where he worked, and how you can do the same. We also covered generative AI, and he shared several other tips from his many years in the business. Learn the old ways!

iCloud is not a backup; it is a synchronization tool. If you delete things on your phone, it deletes them in iCloud. iCloud is not a backup. In fact, if you have storage optimization turned on, the high-resolution verion of your photos is stored in only one place. If you delete it, it's gone forever. Mr. Backup tries tries three different ways to back up your iPhone, and finally settled on idrive.

iDrive was the only solution we found that worked for both iPhone and Android (including if you turned on optimized storage).  If you'd like to try it, make sure to use the link below.

Listeners to the podcast get 90% off their first year using the following link (We will also get a referral fee):

https://www.idrive.com/idrive/o/p/backupcentral/partner90