During my recent AnalystANGLE interview with Tim Zonca from Commvault, the discussion covered the widespread outage that impacted numerous companies globally in July. Tim emphasized the interconnected nature of the event, stressing that it transcended their customer base and affected individuals worldwide. Research data indicates that 96% of organizations surveyed were affected by the outage, reaffirming the extensive impact. Tim also stressed the importance of preparedness, prompting organizations to consider the potential implications if the outage had resulted from a malicious attack (which was not the case). He underscored the need to evaluate readiness for both non-malicious and malicious outages, emphasizing the necessity of being equipped to handle various scenarios and the significance of being able to trust data and the recovery process, stressing the role that Commvault plays to help deliver proactive readiness, which is crucial in ensuring organizations can effectively handle both non-malicious and malicious outages.
Watch Commvault’s Laser Focus On Cyber Resilience Here
The Domino Effect
The main feedback Commvault heard from customers, prospects, and individuals in the market emphasizes the interconnectedness that this event made evident. The impact of the outage was significant regardless of whether talking to a customer, a prospect, or even family members. This event underscored the world’s reliance on the affected technology. Interconnectedness was a common theme in conversations with everyone spoken to throughout the past week.
ETR research found that 96% of the organizations surveyed were affected. This percentage, at 96%, was quite significant, although not entirely surprising given the scale of the incident. This outage was not malicious in nature; it did not involve ransomware. Instead, it was a logical disaster caused by an issue with an update to one of CrowdStrike’s components, specifically a content update. Further data show that the impact was significant, if not highly noticeable. Nearly half of the organizations experienced a very significant or extremely significant impact on their infrastructure, business, and operations. The interconnectivity and domino effect of this incident undeniably had widespread repercussions.
Prepare, Prepare, Prepare
From Commvault’s standpoint, the key takeaway is the importance of being prepared for both malicious and non-malicious incidents that can disrupt business operations. Trust in data, processes, and fixes is crucial, and preparations should consider the possibility of facing additional challenges in the event of a malicious attack.
Tim stresses the importance of testing and preparedness to ensure business resilience, especially in cyber incidents. He points out that organizations are not as ready for cyber-related recovery processes as they are for operational or disaster recovery. It’s clear that organizations need to adjust their business continuity plans to address the unique challenges posed by cyber incidents, making deliberate and thorough testing crucial to improving preparedness. Furthermore, organizations must establish processes for accessing the latest reliable data, carrying out forensics, and conducting recovery process tests for critical applications to identify and resolve any issues. This further underscores the significance of testing in a controlled environment to ensure readiness, particularly in cyber-related incidents. It also demonstrates the importance of achieving the same level of testing maturity for cyber incidents as organizations have for other types of recovery scenarios
Wrapping Up
There is significant competition in the enterprise space in what should be now called the cyber-resilience market, which encompasses traditional BC/DR, data management, storage, and some cyber technology. In response, Commvault has really changed as a company in the past few years and has executed its strategy methodically, further reaffirming its leadership in enterprise disaster recovery and expanding its sights. This has meant investing in new market segments, re-invigorating its channel and alliances, particularly cyber-resilience, and adding significant innovations through acquisitions and its R&D under the leadership of CEO Sanjay Mirchandani. The company’s focus on delivering Intelligent Data Management and Cyber-resilience solutions is paying off, as recent results demonstrate.
This recent outage further confirms the very high relevance of Commvault to the evolving security, data management, and disaster recovery markets. Given this space’s current competitive context and favorable dynamics, Commvault is well-positioned to penetrate the market further.
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