Instant Access to Critical Documents
In today’s digital world, cyber threats such as ransomware have the potential to cripple entire organisations, blocking access to critical data and halting operations. For years, the traditional defence against these attacks has been maintaining reliable backups of data.
However, as attackers become more sophisticated, they are increasingly targeting backups, leaving organisations with no clean recovery point. To counter this, YUDU Sentinel provides a modern solution by offering a hot backup system for critical documents—enabling immediate access to essential content even in the midst of an attack. This strategy aligns with the concept of hot sites in disaster recovery, where mirrored content is instantly available when the main system is compromised.
Ransomware and the Growing Risk to Backups
Ransomware attackers are now targeting backups to ensure that their victims have no quick way to recover. Finding a clean, uninfected backup is often a time-consuming process that involves painstaking checks to avoid reintroducing malware during the restoration. Even with a solid backup, the downtime caused by the recovery process can be catastrophic for businesses, especially when critical documents are needed urgently.
Traditional backups work, but they come with delays. When an attack occurs, restoring access can take hours, days, or even longer, leaving both internal teams and external clients without access to critical documents. This loss of availability can cause severe damage to business continuity, leading to delays, lost revenue, and potential harm to client relationships.
Hot Backup for Critical Documents: Sentinel’s Unique Solution
Sentinel Spaces takes a different approach by offering a hot backup for critical documents, ensuring that key content is always available, even during an attack. This mirrors the concept of hot sites in disaster recovery, which maintain live copies of data and systems that can be instantly switched to when the primary systems are taken down by cyberattacks or natural disasters.
With Sentinel, as critical documents are uploaded to an organisation’s primary server, a copy is automatically added to a designated Sentinel Space. This copy is scanned for malware to ensure that attackers haven’t embedded any malicious content. Once verified, it is securely stored within the Sentinel platform, ready for immediate use if the primary system becomes compromised.
Instant Access When Disaster Strikes
In the event of a cyberattack, businesses often face a frantic scramble to restore access to their systems. While IT teams focus on containing the attack and restoring operations, staff and clients are left waiting—often for hours—until normal service resumes. With Sentinel’s hot backup system, this wait is eliminated. Employees and clients can instantly log in to the Sentinel Space and access the critical documents they need, ensuring that business operations continue uninterrupted.
This approach is a game-changer in disaster recovery because it shifts the focus from time-consuming restoration efforts to continuous availability. While traditional backups are reactive, requiring restoration after an attack, Sentinel’s hot backup system is proactive, providing seamless access even as the main system is being repaired.
How It Works for Client Access
For businesses that need to provide clients with regular access to key documents, Sentinel’s Spaces serve as a dedicated hot site. Each client can be assigned their own Sentinel Space, giving them direct access to critical files even if the primary system is down. Whether it’s contracts, reports, or operational documents, clients no longer have to wait for a recovery process—they can access everything they need immediately, minimising downtime and maintaining trust in the business relationship.
This feature ensures that organisations remain responsive, even during the worst-case scenario. Clients benefit from uninterrupted access to key resources, while internal teams focus on addressing the attack rather than managing access issues.
A Strategic Shift in Disaster Recovery
The term hot backup emphasises readiness and resilience. Sentinel’s system goes beyond simply ensuring that files are saved—it ensures that these files are always accessible in real time. This is especially critical for businesses that need to maintain uptime and offer continuous service to clients, even during crises.
By implementing this hot backup strategy, organisations can avoid the lengthy restoration processes associated with traditional backup systems. Instead, they benefit from an always-on, disaster-proof environment for their most important documents. Staff and clients alike have immediate access to these critical files, even if the organisation’s primary network is locked down by ransomware or other threats.
Empowering IT Teams to Focus on the Attack
Another key advantage of Sentinel’s hot backup solution is that it frees up the organisation’s cybersecurity teams to focus on the attack itself. When a ransomware strike occurs, the immediate priority is to stop the spread of the malware and restore security. The need to restore files or make them available to users can slow down this process, as teams must balance recovery efforts with ongoing cybersecurity defence.
With Sentinel’s system in place, these teams no longer need to prioritise document recovery. Employees and clients have secure, instant access to critical documents via the Sentinel Space, allowing the cybersecurity response team to focus all efforts on repelling the attack and restoring normal operations.
How Sentinel’s Hot Backup System Works
- Document Mirroring: As critical documents are uploaded to the organisation’s server, a mirrored copy is automatically saved in a designated Sentinel Space.
- Malware Scanning: Each document is scanned to ensure it is free of malicious code or ransomware, ensuring that no infected files are stored in the hot backup.
- Immediate Access: In the event of an attack, users can instantly access these mirrored documents via the Sentinel Space, bypassing the need for traditional backup restoration.
- Continuous Availability: With Sentinel’s hot backup system, organisations can maintain document access 24/7, regardless of the state of their primary network.
Conclusion
In the face of increasing cyber threats, businesses need more than just reliable backups—they need hot backups that ensure critical documents are always available. Sentinel’s innovative approach provides exactly that, giving organisations the power to maintain continuous operations and immediate access to key documents, even when under attack. This hot backup system serves as a lifeline, allowing businesses to recover quickly and keep operations running smoothly, while the IT and cybersecurity teams focus on defending against and mitigating the attack.
By leveraging this hot site methodology, Sentinel delivers a new level of disaster recovery readiness, ensuring that critical documents remain accessible at all times. This is not just about backup—it’s about resilience, instant access, and keeping your business operational, no matter what threats you face.
24 Oct 2024