Video: 10 Minute IT Jams - StorageCraft on the security challenges of 2020

The coronavirus pandemic upended the way businesses manage their data. When offices around the world emptied almost overnight, companies and their technology partners were forced to rethink how they protect information and ensure vital business continuity. For Jared Burgess, a sales engineer at StorageCraft, this shift triggered a wave of technical and security challenges - but also rapid innovation.

"The whole working from home, people not being in an office, is probably the most dramatic change we saw," Burgess reflected. As millions set up makeshift offices at kitchen tables and spare bedrooms, what had been standard processes for data protection and recovery quickly became outdated. "Service providers couldn't go inside to see their customers, couldn't go in and do things like removable media changes," he said. "The data wasn't stored where it used to be."

Instead of accessing centralised office servers and shared drives, employees began saving critical data directly to their laptops for convenience, potentially exposing sensitive files and reducing their recoverability. "That whole strategy around how do I protect data had to be re-looked at," Burgess said.

Cloud-based systems, such as Microsoft 365, saw a surge in adoption as organisations raced to support remote working. "I don't think anyone really saw the uptake or the issues that were going to be there," Burgess admitted. The immediate challenge was migration, but new dilemmas quickly emerged: "My own product exchange server has now disappeared, it's now in the cloud - what do I do around data protection?"

As data and workflows scattered, safeguarding that information across multiple locations became an urgent priority. "Offsite backups - how do I get data offsite?" he asked. "I used to take a drive home with me. I'm no longer going into the office." Service providers switched focus to cloud solutions and automations, seeking ways to eliminate the human element and inefficiencies.

The spike in remote work was mirrored by a spike in cyber threats. "The security threats haven't really diminished. If anything, I think they've actually taken off more," Burgess said. Phishing attacks proliferated as criminals exploited new vulnerabilities. "More people were now getting spam, more people were then clicking on links. They were having to adopt things like two-factor authentication."

Ransomware remained a persistent danger, though the headlines faded. "Maybe you don't hear about it as much but it is still well and truly happening," he added. Burgess warned that companies must now pay new attention to where data can be recovered: "There's been a lot of this play around 'These security threats are increasing on a daily basis, but there's this real focus now around how do I recover?'"

User behaviour in the new home working era presented another hurdle. "The educational piece - please don't click on links, don't access things if you don't know where they're from," Burgess said. Criminals imitated well-known brands to trick workers into revealing passwords or approving fraudulent transactions. "We see it internally - we get a lot of things that are phishing scams to get our credentials."

With budgets squeezed, providers and customers had to find smarter, not more expensive, ways to protect themselves and their clients. "All of their partners and customers might be under significant pressure to protect their data with the same or fewer resources," Burgess observed. In response, StorageCraft pushed further into automation, launching a product called ShadowSafe two years ago: "It was all built around how do I manage at scale?"

The software's single console lets providers manage and recover customer data worldwide from one platform, reducing the need for on-site specialists. "I don't need a high-level tech to go and log into machines and validate the backups ran... I can almost get a help-desk person to basically look at a screen," Burgess explained. If something is flagged, an expert can be called in.

Scalability and efficiency became the mantras. "I can really scale up the amount of customers that I'm looking after without having to have this curve of my resource profile needs to go up to be able to die on board, because it's all out of this whole single platform and single management," he said.

Looking to the months ahead, Burgess urged technology partners to embrace "standardisation" and simplicity. "Really simplifying the operation... the reason why we bought technology like ShadowSafe to the market, where we can standardise now, we can now go to a customer and be able to standardise on a single data protection strategy." Documentation and rigorous process are essential for robust, reliable service, especially for managed service providers (MSPs).

Testing routinely is key to confidence and credibility, Burgess argued. "It validates the process, it validates the technology and they can really stand behind that service that they're providing to their customers," he said. "You can sleep easy at night that, I know that the solution I'm providing actually works and if something did happen, then I can actually guarantee that I can recover data."

Automation is the other front line, both for efficiency and service transparency. "The reporting, the analytics - things that we've built into our technology, where they don't have to go and generate data or generate reporting, they can basically get that sense of them on a monthly basis," Burgess explained. This not only gives clients peace of mind, but lets providers show quantifiable value: "The customer doesn't see [the work] on the daily basis so it's being able to report that back to the user around the value of the service they're actually paying for and the outcomes that they're actually getting."

In a world where business and technology will continue to change, the lesson is clear. "Standardisation, automation, I think is the other big key," Burgess said. "Showing value out of the services they're providing... that service is actually proven, that they are actually capable of getting what they're paying for."