The Cyber Defense eMagazine January Edition for 2024

and recovery tools for your critical data and systems can take all the power away from ransomware actors
— if you are impacted by a ransomware attack, you don’t have to think through whether or not you need
to pay to get your data back, you already have the ability to recover it from your encrypted, immutable
and isolated backups.
Every CISO and security practitioner should take the CRI’s pledge as an opportunity to reinforce the
seriousness and impact of ransomware with their boards and leadership within their organization and
have a risk discussion based on the organization's control environment highlighting any gaps in your data
resilience and recovery posture. Simply having a working backup and recovery can greatly reduce the
risk associated with ransomware, not to mention non-malicious and accidental data loss scenarios. Like
I said, having preventative measures in place is important as we all know, but it is equally important to
have data resilience and recovery capabilities in place to protect your sensitive data when bad things
happen. So, my ask is this…do yourself and your organizations a favor and take a fresh look at your data
resilience and recovery capabilities, if you don’t have a plan, create one; if you don’t have the capabilities
to recovery critical data implement them or share this information with your leaders and Board members
and initiate risk-based discussions and options to address gaps in your capabilities.
While the CRI’s pledge is a positive step, I’m certainly not waiting for them to solve the ransomware
problem. But I’m hopeful that all the energy and attention it’s generated will compel companies to take a
hard and objective look at their data resilience and recovery capabilities and plans and take action to
address any gaps. In doing so, you are taking control and changing the narrative around the impact of a
ransomware attack on your organization.
About the Author
Todd Thorsen is the Chief Information Security Officer of CrashPlan. He
brings more than 15 years of information security experience across various
disciplines. Todd has a proven track record of building and leading security
programs focused on global security operations, risk and compliance,
incident response, resilience, and data protection. He can be reached online
on LinkedIn and through the company website at www.crashplan.com.
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