Jeffrey Phelan, public sector chief technology officer at Rubrik, said agencies need to implement certain best practices to protect data and information technology infrastructure from ransomware attacks and other cyber threats.
Phelan wrote that there are four steps agencies can do to secure data across on-premises and cloud environments and the first is applying a “logical air gap, which means the backup infrastructure is readily available but not accessible from the network.”
Another step agencies should adopt is ensuring that their data and file system are immutable and that backup data is not susceptible to any changes or edits. Phelan noted that Rubrik delivers a zero trust-based immutable file system to the data management industry.
He also explained retention lock and data encryption as the third and fourth steps in securing data.
Phelan said agencies should ensure the recoverability of their data and platforms used in meeting their critical missions.
“Regardless of where agencies decide to store that data, they need to be able to access it instantly,” he said. “Recoverability service-level agreements of minutes and hours are possible and delivered today across the whole of government and the Defense Department.”
