Another week and another cyberattack incident making the news. Yet for every news report, there are countless cyberattack victims that are unreported or not high profile enough and the onslaught shows little signs of relenting. A worrying trend is that ransomware groups no longer just target primary data; they go after your backups to fully incapacitate your firm and strong-arm a ransom payment.
According to the DCIG report on cybersecure NAS solutions, attackers now seek to encrypt data stored on them (including snapshots or backup files), or exfiltrate data stored from them. The days of simply storing data and hoping for the best are over. A modern disaster recovery solution is not about protecting data, it’s about its recoverability. The challenge lies in identifying solutions that can make it possible.
The Flaw in Traditional Backups
Traditional storage solutions, while adequate for everyday use, are not built to manage the current wave of cyber threats. Whether by hook or crook, ransomware bad actors attempt to steal credentials to gain administrative privileges to the NAS solution itself to get access to backups. In many cases, snapshots are visible to applications and can be targeted and deleted by the same malware that encrypts the primary data, leaving an organization with no clean point of recovery.
Solutions like the Tintri VMstore are engineered to counter this critical flaw. Tintri technology is by its nature optimized to handle all types of workloads, including containerized applications, databases, and VMs. It has eliminated the outdated LUN and volume constructs that leave traditional storage vulnerable to this type of attack.
The New Standard for Disaster Recovery
The DCIG 2025-26 TOP 5 Cybersecure NAS Solutions report asserts that solutions today must offer a range of cybersecurity capabilities to protect information from threats. Tintri VMstore, for example, is a prime example of a solution that embodies these principles.
- Immutable & “Invisible” Snapshots: The VMstore T7080 offers a sophisticated, immutable, and “invisible” snapshot feature. The VMstore’s TxOS renders each snapshot “invisible” by storing it on internally allocated storage that applications don’t have access to. This structure prevents ransomware from modifying or deleting recovery data, making it safe against a cyberattack.
- Granular Recovery: Instead of restoring from large, LUN-based backups, the VMstore’s SyncVM function allows for fast, granular recovery at the workload level. The VMstore can take more than 100 snapshots per workload, providing a high-fidelity recovery point objective (RPO). Enterprises are able to recover a complete application, a database, or single file in minutes, minimizing downtime and business disruption.
- Centralized, Federated Management: The Tintri Global Center software, included with VMstore TxOS, monitors the full application stack. It treats all VMstores as a single, federated pool of resources and automatically optimizes application placement across them. This centralized view simplifies management and helps ensure consistent security policies across an entire distributed environment.
The Pros and Cons of a Modern Approach to DR
The adoption of a modern disaster recovery strategy is a paradigm shift in how many organizations protect their most critical assets.
- The Pros: Enhanced Resilience & Efficiency
- Unprecedented Data Security: Modern solutions offer both immutable snapshots and at-rest encryption, presenting a powerful, multi-layered safeguard. Encrypting files was discovered by the DCIG report to make it “almost impossible to decrypt and read any encrypted files”.
- Accelerated Recovery Times: With features like per-workload snapshots, organizations can achieve a much faster RTO (Recovery Time Objective).
- Simplified Management: The DCIG report notes that most cybersecure NAS solutions offer a web-based GUI and CLI management dashboards.
- The Cons or Potential Challenges to Consider
- Performance Overhead: The DCIG report notes that features like encryption can incur a performance hit when enabled.
- Implementation Complexity: While centralized management simplifies the day-to-day, the initial deployment of a federated, scale-out architecture can be complex for organizations that lack experience with these technologies.
- Variability of Features: While many modern solutions share features, their implementation can vary. The DCIG report highlights that not all solutions support newer protocols like SMB 3.1.1 or the same set of public clouds.
- Cost: More advanced technical support levels and sophisticated features come with an additional fee. Typically, providers offer email, phone, and online knowledge bases for support, with over 90% offering onsite support and response times under four hours.
No Silver Bullet: A Blueprint for a Modern DR Plan
Unfortunately, there is no single “silver bullet” for disaster recovery. A modern plan must be holistic and multi-layered, and solutions such as the Tintri VMstore can be a core component of that strategy, establishing a base for resilience.
- Conduct a Risk Assessment and Implement Layered Defenses: Modern NAS solutions offer a multitude of features that enable a layered approach to security. This includes integration with Active Directory (AD) and LDAP for better identity management and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for secure logins.
- Choose a Comprehensive Solution: The TOP 5 solutions, among which the Tintri VMstore, distinguish themselves by supporting a wide variety of features from all-flash configurations to multiple replication options, according to the DCIG report.
- Validate and Automate Recovery: A plan is only as good as its execution. Organizations should regularly test their recovery processes to ensure they can meet their RTOs and RPOs. AI-based detection can help to validate the integrity of the recovery points.
- Train and Empower Your People: Since human vulnerabilities are often exploited, security awareness and training are essential. While MFA helps to secure administrative access, employees must be trained to recognize and report social engineering attacks. A technical plan underpinned by a human security culture is the most effective defense.
Sources
- Tintri VMstore Ransomware Recovery: Immutable Before It Was Cool | Tintri
- Why Organisations Struggle to Recover from Cyber Attacks | Tintri
- M&S Cyber Attack – Everything We Know – Security Journal UK
- M&S cyberattack linked to Scattered Spider | Computing UK
- What to learn from the M&S and Co-op cyber attacks | ICAEW
- Jaguar Land Rover tells staff to stay at home following cyber attack | The Independent
- 2025-26 DCIG TOP5 Cybersecure NAS Solutions 10PB+
