Chasing the Recovery Point
Following a successful cyberattack, we have found that substantial amounts of data can become exposed or irretrievable. Our research indicates that businesses can lose many hours or even days’ worth of transactions following such an attack – the Recovery Point Objective, or RPO. This poses significant risks, including business risks, revenue loss, compliance issues, and damage to the organization’s reputation. We believe that a resilient
infrastructure should ensure the actual recovery of data within minutes for mission-critical applications and systems. This approach is not only a matter of simple mathematics but also a sound business strategy. However, achieving this is easier said than done. Therefore, it is essential for cybersecurity and IT teams to closely collaborate in order to build, document, test, and continually improve this resilient infrastructure.
Recovery Times: Don’t be in a Hurry!
While the loss of hours in transaction processing represents a substantial challenge for organizations, the duration required to restore online operations following a cyberattack is equally important. Many survey respondents indicate that it can take several days for normal business functions to resume after an incident. This prolonged downtime incentivizes attackers, as they understand that their actions can severely disrupt organizational operations, increasing the likelihood that victims will comply with
ransom demands in exchange for restoring access to compromised systems or infrastructure. The current state of cyber resilience is therefore inadequate.
A Sense Of Urgency
There is an urgent need for initiatives aimed at reducing both recovery times and recovery points to nearly zero, which would effectively minimize data loss and facilitate a swift return to standard business operations. In this context, vendors are anticipated to assume a vital role by developing integrated solutions across the infrastructure and enhancing the resilience of their products in future iterations. That’s where we expect AI capabilities to help in “beefing up” recovery solutions and processes. Stay tuned for more on this topic, with additional research results from a recent survey coming soon.
