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Introduction Imagine waking up to headlines that your bank, retailer, or airline has suffered a major cyberattack—and within hours, billions vanish from its market value. A breach like this can tarnish years of carefully built reputation and undermine trust in an instant. Trust is the currency of the corporate world: it seals business alliances, sustains trade deals, and underpins every transaction between buyer and seller. In today’s digital economy, a single breach can shake investors’ confidence as much as a poor earnings report—or worse. During my EPQ research, I discovered that the real question is not if cyberattacks impact share prices—they do—but how much. Some companies see only a short-lived dip. Others spiral into prolonged decline. The difference lies not simply in the attack itself, but in the quality of the response. What Really Drives the Impact? The first casualty of a cyber breach is often trust. Investors immediately ask: Will customers still believe in this company’s ability to deliver? Economist John Maynard Keynes described this as “animal spirits”—the instincts and emotions that drive economic behaviour. Fear spreads faster than facts, and share prices can fall sharply before the full scale of a breach is even understood. This is why corporate response matters. A rapid, transparent reaction shapes market sentiment and stabilises equity prices. Delays or silence, on the other hand, magnify uncertainty and deepen losses. From my project, three main factors stood out: Nature of the breach: A ransomware lockout, a supply chain attack, or a large-scale data theft each carry different weight.Corporate response: Did leaders act quickly, communicate openly, and prove they could prevent recurrence? Or did they leave space for rumours and speculation?Regulation and legal fallout: Fines, lawsuits, and compliance costs can stretch the financial impact far beyond the initial panic. These elements explain why some breaches trigger only minor dips, while others unleash full-scale crashes. Breaches That Shook the Market Yahoo (2013 & 2014) 3 billion accounts compromised.Aftermath: $117.5M settlement, $35M in fines, and stock declines of 6.1% and 3.1% after disclosure. Capital One (2019) 106 million records exposed.Shares plunged nearly 14% in two weeks as investors questioned confidence in the brand. Maersk (2017) Supply-chain malware paralysed global shipping operations.Swift action limited losses to $300M, and shares rebounded 5% within a month—unlike Equifax, where sluggish disclosure drove a 30% six-month slide. Retail Breaches (2025) UK retail firms saw data compromises wipe out up to 3% of stock value in days.Heightened EU data protection scrutiny magnified investor anxiety, proving patterns identified years ago still persist. These cases underscore how response quality dictates the extent—from minor 3% dips to devastating 30% slides. Crises don’t just test systems; they test leadership and accountability. In the long run, they test progress. The Future: Defence and Doubt Technology is reshaping the battleground. AI-driven cybersecurity now monitors behaviour patterns and detects anomalies in real time. This containment limits breaches before they spiral into market shocks. Far from replacing jobs, AI automates repetitive tasks so human specialists can tackle bigger threats.But AI is also a double-edged sword. Criminals deploy it for targeted ransomware, data exfiltration, and reputational extortion schemes that go far beyond simple pay-to-decrypt attacks.Blockchain provides another defence line. By decentralising identity systems and creating tamper-proof records, it reduces fraud and unauthorised access. Early programmes show blockchain adoption can cut recovery costs by up to 30%—sometimes the difference between rebounding and prolonged decline. Together, these technologies could shrink the market impact of breaches from catastrophic 14% plunges to manageable 3–6% dips—if companies adopt them wisely. Conclusion Cybersecurity breaches are no longer side stories. They are front-page financial events. The scale of damage depends less on the attack itself and more on how companies handle the aftermath. Firms that respond well typically face share price drops of only 3–6%.Poor responses can trigger losses of 30% or more, eroding investor confidence for months.Companies with strong cyber insurance or proactive disclosures sometimes rebound within weeks—proof that preparation matters. The message is simple: cybersecurity is no longer just an IT issue—it’s a shareholder issue. With global cybercrime costs projected to reach $10.5 trillion annually by 2025, no company can afford complacency. So the real question is: When—not if—the next breach comes, will your organisation’s response reassure investors, or spark a sell-off?

Ransomware has cemented itself as one of the most disruptive and costly cyber threats facing organizations today. A recent IT Pro article underscores just how devastating the financial and operational impact has become. According to their reporting, 72 percent of organizations experienced an attack in the past year, and the average recovery cost now sits at a staggering $4.5 million. Nearly three-quarters of CISOs surveyed said a successful ransomware incident could critically disrupt operations. Even when companies manage to recover without paying a ransom, the downtime itself carries crippling costs. The survey revealed stark differences in recovery speed: 42% of firms recovered within 24 hours39% took up to a week5% were offline for more than two weeks For a modern enterprise, being without critical systems for days or even weeks can be as damaging as paying the ransom itself. The revenue losses, regulatory risks, and customer trust erosion compound into a crisis that extends well beyond IT. A Positive Trend: Fewer Ransom Payments There is one encouraging data point. Only 17 percent of enterprises have paid a ransom in 2025 so far, an all-time low. For years, ransom payments hovered much higher, with organizations often feeling they had no other option but to pay attackers to regain access to data. What has changed is that enterprises are building the ability to recover quickly and cleanly without depending on the attacker. The logic is simple. If you can restore confidently from uncompromised recovery points, you remove the attacker’s leverage. Paying becomes unnecessary. This signals a shift in thinking. Prevention, while critical, is no longer enough. As ransomware grows more sophisticated and evasive, resilience through recovery has emerged as the ultimate differentiator. The Myth of “Just Having Backups” A dangerous misconception still lingers in many boardrooms: “We’re fine, we have backups.” But having backups is not the same as having usable backups. Too often, organizations discover too late that their recovery points are riddled with problems like corruption, hidden malware, or incomplete coverage. The first time these issues surface is during a crisis, when recovery timelines are most critical. Consider the statistics above. Why did nearly half of organizations take days or weeks to recover? Because while their backups may have existed, they weren’t necessarily validated. Without assurance of integrity, IT teams are left sifting through recovery points, trying to find one that isn’t compromised. That turns recovery into a time-consuming and high-stakes guessing game. From Backup to Provable Recovery That is why forward-looking enterprises are moving beyond backup as a checkbox exercise and embracing provable recovery. This involves continuously validating backups to ensure they are clean, complete, and usable at any moment. Key practices include: Automated validation of every recovery pointRegularly testing that backups can be restored and function as expected, not just stored.Continuous scanning for hidden ransomware artifactsDetecting stealthy encryption, dormant binaries, or insider-driven tampering before recovery is attempted.Coverage assurance across systemsEnsuring all critical applications and data are included and protected. By layering these practices, IT leaders can remove the uncertainty that typically haunts recovery efforts. Instead of hoping their backups will work, they can demonstrate with confidence that recovery is both possible and fast. The New Language of the Boardroom: Certainty CISOs and CIOs know ransomware is no longer a fringe risk. It is a board-level concern. Executives and directors want to know: If we are hit tomorrow, what happens? Without validated recovery assurance, the answer is murky at best. But with provable recovery in place, IT leaders can enter the boardroom with a different message: “We don’t just have backups. We know our backups are clean.”“We have tested recovery continuously, and we can restore within hours”“We will not pay a ransom. We will not stay down.” That kind of certainty does more than protect operations. It strengthens investor confidence, customer trust, and regulatory standing. The Cost Equation: Downtime vs. Preparedness At first glance, investing in advanced recovery validation may seem like an added cost in already tight IT budgets. But let’s compare. The average cost of recovery from a ransomware incident: $4.5 millionAverage downtime: days to weeksLong-term costs: reputational damage, customer churn, regulatory fines, and lost contracts Against that backdrop, the cost of implementing proactive resilience measures is marginal. In fact, enterprises that can avoid paying ransoms, reduce downtime, and preserve trust often see a significant return on resilience investments. Case in Point: How Enterprises Are Putting This Into Practice Across industries from financial services to healthcare to SaaS, organizations are already adopting provable recovery strategies. They are: Deploying continuous data integrity validation tools to scan backups for corruption and ransomware encryptionRunning automated restore tests to confirm applications can be brought back online seamlesslyAligning recovery practices with compliance frameworks like DORA, HIPAA, and NYDFS that now mandate cyber-resilient recoveryIntegrating recovery assurance into incident response playbooks, so when attacks happen, teams already know exactly which recovery points are safe This is not just an IT shift. It is a strategic pivot. Enterprises that embrace provable recovery are redefining resilience as a competitive advantage. Why Now? The Ransomware Arms Race The urgency is clear. Ransomware tactics continue to evolve. Attackers increasingly target backups themselves, launch encryption slowly to evade detection, and use stealthy techniques to blend into normal system behavior. Defenses that worked five years ago, like perimeter firewalls, malware signature scanning, or even immutable storage, are no longer sufficient. Today’s arms race requires layered defense: prevention, detection, and above all, recovery assurance. Because no matter how strong your defenses, the ultimate test is this: Can you recover quickly without paying? Conclusion: Building Confidence in Recovery The numbers do not lie. Ransomware is costing organizations millions, with downtime dragging on for days or even weeks. Yet there is hope. Fewer enterprises are paying ransoms because more are building the ability to recover confidently. The shift from prevention to resilience marks a turning point in cyber strategy. Having backups is not enough. Knowing your backups are clean and usable is what counts. By investing in provable recovery through continuous validation, automated testing, and ransomware artifact detection, organizations can ensure that when, not if, an attack strikes, they will bounce back fast. The full IT Pro article, “Ransomware attacks carry huge financial impacts – but CISO worries still aren’t stopping firms from paying out” offers further detail on these trends. But the takeaway is clear. Resilience is no longer optional. It is the defining capability of modern enterprises. And that raises the most important question for every IT and security leader today: If you were hit tomorrow, could you recover with certainty?

Not long ago, organizations could feel reasonably confident that if disaster struck — whether from hardware failure, human error, or a cyberattack — they could turn to their backups and get back on their feet. The thinking was simple: as long as the data was duplicated and stored safely, recovery was just a matter of restoring it. That confidence has eroded. Today’s ransomware campaigns are stealthier, more targeted, and more patient than their predecessors. The modern attacker doesn’t just smash into your environment, encrypt everything in sight, and display a ransom note. They wait. They blend in. They use your tools against you. And they make sure that by the time you notice anything is wrong, your backups — your last line of defense — have already been compromised. It’s a quiet, methodical game of chess. And unless your recovery plan accounts for it, you could find yourself restoring corrupted data when the pressure is highest. The Compliance and Business Mandate for Recovery Assurance Ransomware resilience isn’t a “nice-to-have” anymore. Regulators, cyber insurers, and executive boards now expect — and often demand — proof that you can recover from an attack without costly delays or surprises. This isn’t just about ticking a compliance checkbox. It’s about operational survival. The inability to quickly identify a safe recovery point can mean: Prolonged downtime that stalls revenue and damages your brandRegulatory penalties for data loss or service disruptionCostly ransom payments are simply to regain access to critical systems.Lost customer trust that may never be fully rebuilt For organizations running workloads on AWS, the stakes are exceptionally high. Cloud adoption brings speed, scale, and flexibility — but also creates more potential entry points and complexities in data protection. Why Backups Alone Fall Short in a Ransomware Era In theory, immutable backups sound like a perfect shield. In reality, ransomware has evolved in ways that specifically undermine traditional backup strategies: Fileless Malware: Operates entirely in memory, leaving no files for antivirus software to scan.Polymorphic Ransomware: Constantly changes its signature to avoid detection by signature-based security tools.Living-off-the-Land (LOTL) Attacks: Uses legitimate admin tools like PowerShell or bash to carry out malicious actions under the radar.Low-and-Slow Encryption: Encrypts small portions of data over weeks or months, staying below alert thresholds while ensuring infected data silently flows into backup sets. When these techniques slip past endpoint defenses and SIEM alerts, they don’t just compromise your production data; they poison your recovery points. By the time you attempt a restore, you could be reintroducing the very threat you’re trying to eliminate. Closing the Gap: Continuous Backup Validation in AWS This is where AWS and Elastio together change the equation. AWS provides powerful native services for protecting workloads: AWS Backup for centralized, automated backup managementAWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (DRS) for rapid failoverAWS Logically Air-Gapped (LAG) Vaults for secure, immutable storageAWS Restore Tests for simulating recovery scenarios But while AWS delivers the tools to store and recover your data, Elastio ensures that what you’re recovering is clean and uncompromised. How Elastio Fits Into the AWS Data Protection Stack Elastio integrates directly with AWS services like S3, EBS Snapshots, AWS Backup, DRS, and FSx to continuously scan backups and replicas for: Ransomware Encryption Patterns — including polymorphic and low-rate strains that evade traditional toolsInsider Threat Encryption — intentional or accidental data tampering from withinCorruption or Data Integrity Issues — ensuring that every recovery point is not just secure, but usable. The results aren’t just alerts — they’re actionable, compliance-grade reports that mark each safe recovery point with a “Last Known Clean” badge. This gives your team absolute clarity on which backups are trustworthy when every second counts. Detection Accuracy That Doesn’t Compromise Performance Unlike traditional endpoint protection or in-band scanning, Elastio operates out of band. This means attackers with OS-level access can’t tamper with scan results or disable protection. Its ML engine — trained by reverse engineering every significant ransomware strain since 2014 — delivers 99.999% detection precision without impacting system performance. Whether the malicious code is polymorphic, fileless, or slow-moving, Elastio detects it and certifies whether your recovery point is clean. Compliance and Cyber Insurance Made Easier For organizations subject to frameworks like NIST, DORA, NYDFS, or rigorous cyber insurance underwriting, proving recovery capability is no longer optional. Elastio’s audit-ready reporting gives you: Documented evidence of clean recovery pointsHistorical tracking of data integrity over timeSimplified proof-of-compliance during audits or insurance renewals. This isn’t just about security; it’s about reducing friction, lowering costs, and ensuring compliance. Real-World Impact: Saving Days or Weeks in a Crisis Consider the experience of JetSweep’s Director of Cloud Solutions, Jeff Fudge: “Elastio allowed us to see almost immediately which backups were clean. That saved us days—possibly weeks—of trial and error.” In a ransomware scenario, those days saved can be the difference between a quick recovery and a catastrophic business interruption. Why This Matters Now The ransomware problem isn’t going away. It’s getting worse: Attackers are exploiting the cloud’s scale and complexityThe median dwell time for ransomware in backups is increasing.Regulatory and insurance scrutiny is tightening. In short: if you can’t prove your recovery points are clean before a restore, you’re gambling with your organization’s future. The AWS + Elastio Advantage With AWS providing the secure, scalable infrastructure and Elastio delivering automated ransomware recovery assurance, you get: Proven-Clean Recovery Points: Confidence that you’re restoring uncompromised dataContinuous Validation: Out-of-band scans that work at scale without slowing operationsRegulatory Alignment: Compliance-ready audit reports to satisfy regulators and insurersRapid, Confident Recovery: Eliminate the guesswork in disaster scenarios As Sanjay Singh, Head of DevSecOps at Games24x7, put it: “Our primary focus was to fortify our backup system, ensuring improved mission-critical data recoverability and business continuity… Elastio understood our priorities and collaborated with us in constructing a robust framework for a resilient and secure foundation for our data management needs.” From “Hope It Works” to “Know It Works” The shift in mindset is simple but profound. Traditional backup strategies are rooted in hope — the hope that what’s stored is uncorrupted and usable. AWS + Elastio replaces hope with proof. Instead of waiting for a crisis to test your backups, you continuously validate them in real time. Instead of scrambling to isolate clean recovery points after an attack, you already know which ones are safe. That’s what ransomware recovery assurance means: the ability to restore quickly, confidently, and without reintroducing the threat. Ready to Prove Recovery? Ransomware resilience is no longer just about stopping the attack — it’s about ensuring you can bounce back without hesitation. AWS and Elastio together make that possible. With this joint solution, your cloud transformation isn’t just faster and more scalable — it’s inherently more resilient, more compliant, and more defensible. Prove recovery. Stop ransomware. Read more: Automated Ransomware Recovery Assurance for AWS Cloud Backups Ensure Clean, Ransomware-Free Recovery with Elastio & AWS Logically Air-Gapped Vaults AWS DRS + Elastio: Disaster Recovery Starts with Clean, Verified Data Elastio Ransomware Recovery Assurance Platform & AWS Backup

When it comes to ransomware, the question is no longer “if” but “when.” At a recent expert panel hosted by RKON and Elastio, security leaders came together to explore one of the most mission-critical, yet frequently neglected, areas of cybersecurity: ransomware recovery. The session featured a candid and practical discussion with: Gerard Onorato, CISO at RKONGreg Aligiannis, CISO at Elastio With decades of frontline experience between them, these two security leaders unpacked what organizations are getting wrong about recovery, how attackers are evolving, and what every business should be doing to prove they can bounce back. From Protection to Recovery: The Shift in Focus Traditional cybersecurity strategies focus on preventing ransomware from entering the system. But the reality today is that ransomware actors are already inside – and they’re targeting recovery infrastructure just as much as production systems. “Attackers are no longer just encrypting data,” explained Greg Aligiannis. “They're going after your backups first – disabling snapshots, exfiltrating encryption keys, and corrupting data quietly before pulling the trigger.” The Most Dangerous Misconceptions Gerard Onorato called out three major fallacies he regularly encounters: “Our SaaS providers cover us.” Companies often assume Microsoft, Google, or Salesforce will protect their data. In reality, those platforms explicitly disclaim responsibility in their contracts.“We’ll have time to react.” Dwell times have dropped from days to hours. Attackers move quickly and strategically.“We’ve backed up everything, so we’re safe.” Volume doesn’t matter if backups are corrupted. Clean, current, and tested backups are the accurate benchmark of resilience. Greg echoed this sentiment: “You're just storing corruption in an immutable vault if you don't know your backups are clean.” The Three C’s of Recovery Readiness Gerard shared a framework RKON uses to evaluate recovery maturity: Clean: Are backups continuously scanned for data corruption and ransomware compromise?Current: Are restore points recent, and have they been tested successfully?Controlled: Are credentials secure, backups air-gapped, immutable, and access tightly segmented? This simple model gives executives and boards an easy way to understand recovery posture. Why Recovery Belongs in Zero Trust Zero Trust is more than a buzzword: it’s a necessary mindset shift. Greg and Gerard agreed that Zero Trust must extend to backup environments, not just production systems. “Backups are often treated as a ‘trusted zone,’” Greg warned. “That’s a huge mistake. The same access controls, segmentation, and monitoring you apply to your apps and users must also apply to recovery infrastructure.” Compliance + Recovery: The New Reality Regulators, insurers, and boards are demanding proof of recoverability, not just claims. SEC disclosure rules now require incident reporting within four days.Cyber insurers are inserting escape clauses that void coverage if recovery testing isn’t documented or regularly performed.CISOs are increasingly personally liable for misstatements around ransomware preparedness. Greg urged companies to automate recovery drills and reporting so compliance is continuous and auditable. “This isn’t about check-the-box exercises. It’s about real resilience.” Making the Case to the Board When presenting to the board, both speakers emphasized focusing on business impact over tools: What is the cost per hour of downtime?How many critical assets meet recovery objectives?What percentage of backups are clean and tested? “If you want board buy-in,” said Gerard, “talk about how many of your critical business functions are covered – and how many aren’t. They will ask why.” If You Could Start Over. What would you do differently? When asked what they would do differently if they could build their ransomware programs from scratch, the answers were aligned: Gerard: Start with recovery reliability. Design end-to-end security, telemetry, and identity segmentation, starting at the backup layer.Greg: Make recovery central, not peripheral. Treat it as a primary control, not a safety net. Build with breach assumptions, not blind optimism. Final Words of Wisdom To wrap the session, the panelists shared the one lesson they wished they had taken more seriously earlier in their careers: Gerard Onorato: “Assume your controls will fail. Test more. Be less optimistic.”Greg Aligiannis: “Backups are only helpful if you know they’re clean. Treat recovery testing like phishing simulations or red teaming: it’s a first-class security discipline.” Closing Thoughts Ransomware is a business risk with real-world consequences for operations, compliance, and reputation. If your recovery plan hasn’t been validated, stress-tested, and embedded in your Zero Trust framework, it’s not a plan, but it’s a prayer. Thanks to RKON and Elastio for a candid, practical, and timely conversation on what it takes to truly prove recovery. Check out the whole recording.Check out the whole recording.

In an era where ransomware attacks are increasingly targeting backup infrastructure, relying on untested recovery points is a risk no enterprise can afford. For organizations standardizing on hybrid cloud infrastructure with VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), the stakes are even higher—cybercriminals now aim beyond production data to corrupt or encrypt backup files, metadata, and even replication targets. That’s why IBM, Veeam, and Elastio have partnered to deliver a proactive ransomware recovery assurance solution for VCF environments. Together, they offer not just secure backup and replication, but provable recovery. This integrated approach combines Veeam’s enterprise-grade backup, IBM’s immutable storage, and Elastio’s automated ransomware scanning and backup validation, giving organizations confidence that their recovery points are clean, bootable, and compliant. Elastio seamlessly integrates into your VCF-based workloads, continuously scanning Veeam backups stored on IBM FlashSystem or object storage for signs of ransomware, encryption, and data corruption. Its AI-powered detection engine validates recoverability in an isolated, non-disruptive environment, producing detailed audit-ready reports to meet cyber insurance and regulatory standards like DORA, NYDFS, and NIST. Whether you're preparing for compliance audits or bracing for the next cyberattack, this solution ensures your last line of defense is resilient, verified, and ready to restore. Read full solution brief.

That was the central question guiding our recent executive roundtable, co-hosted by Sheltered Harbor, AWS, NetApp, and Elastio in New York City. The conversation brought together senior leaders in the financial services industry to explore what it truly takes to prepare for a ransomware event that could jeopardize data, disrupt operations, or erode customer trust. While the event was focused on financial institutions, the insights shared are relevant to any organization that views recovery as a strategic risk area. Here are three key takeaways we hope all resilience leaders will carry forward. Executive Buy-In Is Foundational Cyber resilience is not just an IT issue. It is a board-level concern that requires alignment across leadership, not only on tooling but on priorities. Everyone around the table agreed that programs stall without clear ownership, measurable objectives, and regular testing. Executives set the tone. They define what "good" looks like and ensure it is resourced and reviewed. Recovery has to be treated as a business-critical capability, not an afterthought when something goes wrong. Helpful resource: Sheltered Harbor Maturity Model for RecoveryUse this to benchmark your current state, identify gaps, and clearly communicate next steps to stakeholders. The "Three I’s" Are the New Standard for Ransomware-Ready Data Protection A recurring theme throughout the discussion was the growing adoption of the "Three I’s" framework: Immutability, Isolation, and Integrity. Immutability keeps backup data from being modified or deleted.Isolation ensures attackers cannot reach recovery data.Integrity validates that data is clean and restorable. All three are essential. Without them, attackers retain leverage and recovery remains a gamble. As one participant put it, "Immutability without integrity is just a locked box filled with poisoned data." Helpful resources:Cyber Vaults: How Regulated Sectors Fight Cyberattacks • Disaster Recovery JournalBlog on the core pillars of effective cyber vaulting Building a Sheltered Harbor compliant data vault on AWS | AWS for IndustriesHow AWS infrastructure can support immutability, isolation, and integrity Data Integrity Scanning Is Now a Core Security Control It’s no longer enough to wait for a recovery event to find out if your data is usable. That moment is too late. Continuous integrity scanning of both production and backup data is becoming a best practice across regulated sectors. Why? Because ransomware actors are now employing tactics to bypass existing tools and remain undetected, compromising recovery long before alarms go off. Expert-led scanning enables organizations to identify compromised recovery points and maintain a reliable inventory of clean data, ready when needed. Without it, organizations are flying blind. Helpful resources:Ensuring Clean Recovery Points in a World of Sophisticated & Evolving RansomwareWhy expert scans on backup data are necessary to continuously prove recoverability ONTAP Autonomous Ransomware Protection (NetApp)Behavior-based detection of ransomware in production data Want to Go Deeper? If you missed the roundtable but would like to continue the conversation, we’re happy to connect with you one-on-one. Let’s ensure your organization is prepared to recover—before an attack puts it to the test.Contact – Elastio SoftwareContact – Elastio Software About the Hosts This event brought together experts across cloud, data infrastructure, and cyber recovery: Sheltered Harbor: The financial sector’s nonprofit standard-bearer for recovery readinessElastio: The ransomware recovery assurance platform validating backup and recovery data integrityAWS: The cloud backbone supporting secure, scalable cyber resilience architecturesNetApp: The intelligent data infrastructure provider with built-in ransomware protection

On July 16, 2025, the AWS Summit took over the Javits Center in New York City, gathering cloud leaders, developers, and innovators to discuss how the next phase of cloud computing is shaping industries, transforming infrastructure, and raising the bar on resilience and trust. Two clear themes emerged from the Summit this year: Cloud Migration and Security & Compliance. These twin pillars are not just technical imperatives – they're business mandates. Organizations are increasingly moving away from legacy systems and embracing AWS cloud infrastructure for its elasticity, scalability, and global reach. However, with that transition comes heightened responsibility: how do you ensure your workloads remain secure, compliant, and recoverable in an era where threats like ransomware and increased regulatory scrutiny are on the rise? This is where Elastio, in close alignment with AWS, becomes essential. By offering integrated ransomware recovery assurance and clean restore validation, Elastio delivers exactly what today's cloud-forward enterprises need: provable control over data integrity and recovery. Cloud Migration: Making the Move with Confidence Why Cloud Migration Still Dominates the Conversation Despite the maturity of cloud computing, many enterprises are still in the early stages of their cloud journeys or are undergoing complex, multi-phase migrations. The Summit emphasized how AWS continues to evolve its migration playbooks and tooling, including: AWS Application Migration Service (MGN) to simplify lift-and-shiftAWS Migration Hub to provide visibility and controlAWS DataSync and Snowball for large-scale data movement Yet, one consistent refrain from speakers and panelists was that migration isn't just about moving workloads – it's about making sure those workloads are secure, resilient, and recoverable on day one. Elastio + AWS: Cloud Migration with Recovery Assurance Built In Elastio strengthens AWS cloud migrations by ensuring organizations don't just move data; they validate that the data is safe and restorable post-migration. Here's how: Ransomware Scanning and Recovery Validation for AWS Snapshots and DRS Replicas: Elastio automatically scans AWS-native backups—including EBS Snapshots, Amazon S3 backups, and AWS DRS replicas—for indicators of compromise (IOCs). This ensures that recovery points, whether from backup or disaster recovery replicas, are clean, uncompromised, and ready for safe restoration.Recovery Assurance for Migrated Workloads: After migration, Elastio continuously monitors the recoverability of critical assets. It doesn't wait for a disaster—it tests recoverability as a regular practice, offering confidence in clean, rapid restores.AWS Native Integration: Elastio is designed to plug directly into AWS services. Whether you're using AWS Backup, EC2, or S3, Elastio works in tandem to validate the integrity of your data without disrupting operations. Cloud migration is ultimately about reducing risk and ensuring future readiness. Elastio aligns perfectly with these goals by providing an essential layer of migration hygiene, confirming not only that your data arrived safely but also that it's clean, safe, and usable. Security & Compliance: Building Trust at Scale Why This Is the Year of Compliance-Driven Cloud Security 2025 marks a turning point in how organizations approach cloud security—not just in posture, but in provability. With global regulations such as DORA, NYDFS 500, SEC cybersecurity rules, and CISA cross-sector mandates, the conversation has shifted from "do we have security?" to "can we prove it?" AWS addressed this shift with deeper investments in: Automated Security Hub IntegrationsZero Trust Architecture SupportEnd-to-End Encryption EnhancementsAudit-Ready Compliance Frameworks (e.g., ISO, SOC, FedRAMP) However, one of the most frequently discussed pain points remains data recovery assurance. As attackers shift tactics and regulatory fines loom larger, companies must validate that they can recover cleanly from incidents, rather than just hoping they can. Elastio + AWS: Making Recovery a Proven Control Elastio meets this challenge head-on by transforming backup validation into a cybersecurity control. Together with AWS, it enables organizations to: Continuously Verify Recovery Readiness: Elastio automatically validates backups and snapshots in AWS environments. It checks for malware, file entropy anomalies, and corruption, ensuring that recovery points are both available and trustworthy.Maintain Immutable Recovery Points: Leveraging AWS-native immutability capabilities (e.g., S3 Object Lock, AWS Backup Vault Lock), Elastio ensures recovery artifacts can't be altered or deleted, satisfying both ransomware protection and compliance requirements.Generate Compliance-Ready Reports: Elastio delivers audit-grade logs and reports showing that every snapshot and backup has been validated for recoverability. These artifacts become powerful tools during regulatory assessments, cyber insurance reviews, or executive board reporting. In a world where CISOs are being asked to prove cyber resilience—not just posture—Elastio + AWS delivers the rare combination of proof and performance. Final Takeaway: The Future of Cloud Demands Clean Recovery The 2025 AWS Summit made one thing clear: cloud adoption is no longer just about innovation—it's about accountability. Enterprises must prove that their infrastructure is resilient, secure, and compliant. This is why the fusion of AWS's vast infrastructure services with Elastio's intelligent recovery assurance platform is so critical. As you consider your next cloud migration or evaluate your cyber readiness posture, ask not just "Can we recover?" but "Can we prove that our recovery will be clean, fast, and compliant?" With AWS and Elastio, the answer is Yes. Learn More:Cyber recovery with AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery and Elastio Platform Elastio Integrates with AWS Backup for Secure Backups to Enhance Ransomware Defense

In recent months, the cybercrime group known as Scattered Spider has become one of the most dangerous threats facing enterprises today – especially those in financial services and insurance. Unlike traditional ransomware gangs that rely on malware payloads and brute-force intrusion, Scattered Spider wins by exploiting a more vulnerable attack surface: human beings. Their playbook is a masterclass in social engineering. They impersonate employees, deceive help desks, and execute SIM-swapping tactics to bypass even well-configured identity protections. Once inside, they don’t waste time. Within hours, they’ve locked systems with ransomware and begun exfiltrating sensitive data — turning a single breach into a dual-threat disaster. A Shift in Tactics: From Code to Con What makes Scattered Spider so dangerous isn’t their technical sophistication – it’s their ability to manipulate people. This group thrives on weak identity processes, untrained support staff, and reactive rather than proactive detection. The key to defending against them lies in reducing the opportunities for deception and increasing your visibility into abnormal behavior. Here’s what organizations should be doing now: Harden Identity SecurityPhishing-resistant multi-factor authentication (MFA) isn’t optional anymore. Hardware tokens, FIDO2 keys, and biometrics should be considered table stakes, especially for privileged access.Also: Work with telecom providers to lock down SIM swap vulnerabilities.Scrutinize vendor and third-party access — these often represent the soft underbelly of your identity perimeter. Ensure they follow the same rigorous controls you enforce internally. Shore Up Help Desk DefensesHelp desks are frequent targets in these attacks. A rushed or understaffed support rep can be the single point of failure.To reduce this risk: Train support teams to spot impersonation attempts and urgent-sounding ruses.Require multiple layers of identity verification before making changes to credentials or MFA settings.Monitor and audit help desk interactions involving privilege escalation or account recovery. Bolster Detection of Abnormal BehaviorOnce an attacker is in, time is of the essence. The faster you detect lateral movement, off-hours access, or privilege escalation, the more contained the blast radius will be.Invest in: Behavioral-based EDR/XDR platforms that detect anomalous actions — not just known indicators of compromise.Fine-tuned alerting for events like sudden role changes, new login locations, or access to inactive systems. Prove You Can RecoverBackups are necessary, but they're no longer sufficient. Too many organizations discover after the fact that their last known good backup was already compromised.Recovery needs to be treated as a provable control: Validate backup integrity regularly to ensure they haven’t been corrupted or encrypted.Use a data integrity layer that detects signs of ransomware within backup data itself — not just in production.Routinely test your recovery processes under realistic conditions to build confidence and reduce time to recovery. Final Thought: Resilience in the Age of Deception Scattered Spider isn’t outcoding your defenses – they’re outsmarting your teams. And as attackers increasingly lean on manipulation over malware, the battle for resilience comes down to three things: identity, verification, and recovery. At Elastio, we work with organizations that want to turn recovery into a strategic advantage. If ransomware is on your radar — or you’re looking to pressure test your ability to recover from a breach – let’s talk. The first step to staying ahead of threats like Scattered Spider is learning how others are preparing for them.

As cyber threats become increasingly sophisticated and regulatory demands intensify, organizations must evolve their data protection strategies beyond traditional backup. That’s why we’re excited to highlight AWS Backup’s new multi-party approval capability—an added layer of protection designed to safeguard critical backup operations from malicious or accidental changes. This feature aligns closely with Elastio’s mission to ensure clean, restorable, and provably recoverable data. Together, AWS and Elastio are empowering enterprises with greater control, visibility, and confidence in their backup and recovery workflows—helping to reduce ransomware risk and accelerate operational recovery when it matters most. Read full blog.

In today’s hybrid cloud environments, data protection is more than just backup—it’s about resilience, security, and assured recoverability. As threats like ransomware grow more sophisticated and compliance demands tighten, IT leaders must go beyond traditional disaster recovery plans and adopt a strategy that ensures not only that data exists, but that it’s clean, restorable, and proven. That’s where the combination of IBM Cloud VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), Veeam, and Elastio—what Neil Taylor calls the Data Protection Trinity—comes into play. Together, they create a modern, integrated architecture that balances high availability with ransomware resilience and recovery assurance. Neil’s blog breaks down how each piece of the puzzle plays a critical role: IBM Cloud VCF provides the cloud-smart infrastructure,Veeam delivers robust data backup and replication,Elastio brings real-time threat detection and clean recovery validation. This trio doesn’t just protect your data—it ensures you can trust it when it matters most. Read the full article here to see how the Data Protection Trinity is redefining recovery readiness in the hybrid cloud era.

Ransomware attacks are accelerating exponentially, with global damages projected to reach $57 billion annually by 2025. While prevention remains critical, experts now agree that it’s not a matter of if, but when, organizations will face an attack, making effective recovery strategies equally vital. Enter cyber vaulting: a novel approach gaining traction across regulated industries to combat sophisticated threats. Built around the principles of immutability and air-gap isolation, cyber vaults create a secure buffer zone for critical data, protecting it from corruption, deletion, or unauthorized access. This resilient strategy complements traditional backups by validating integrity and rebuilding trust in recovery processes. In the latest feature from Disaster Recovery JournalDisaster Recovery Journal, industry leaders break down why cyber vaulting is becoming indispensable for ransomware resilience. From vaulting architecture essentials to regulatory compliance considerations, the article outlines how a robust cyber vault can help organizations: Maintain a clean, verifiable source of truth.Comply with stringent standards (GDPR, HIPAA, SOX, and beyond).Reclaim operations swiftly without yielding to ransom demands. Whether you're a CISO, IT lead, or IT resilience advocate, this piece offers strategic insights to rethink your cybersecurity posture. Ready to explore how cyber vaulting can fortify your defense-in-depth strategy—and why it’s emerging as a must-have for ransomware readiness? Let’s dive in. Read more on Cyber Vaults: How Regulated Sectors Fight CyberattacksCyber Vaults: How Regulated Sectors Fight Cyberattacks Learn More at www.elastio.com

In today’s threat landscape, having backups isn’t enough—you need to prove you can recover cleanly, confidently, and quickly. That’s why we’re excited to announce our strategic partnership with Cloud303, an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner known for building secure, highly available, and resilient cloud infrastructure. Elastio’s Ransomware Recovery Assurance Platform is purpose-built to detect ransomware in backups, validate integrity before recovery, and minimize downtime when every second counts. Cloud303 brings deep AWS expertise, hands-on guidance, and a customer-obsessed approach to deployment and operations. Together, we’re empowering organizations to adopt ransomware recovery assurance at scale. This partnership brings a powerful combination to market: AWS-native design and operational excellenceProvable ransomware-free recovery workflowsCompliance-aligned data protection for regulated industries24/7 support and trusted engineering execution We’re already working together to bring these capabilities to enterprise, mid-market, and public sector organizations—and we couldn’t be more excited about what’s ahead. Stay tuned for joint workshops, solution briefs, and customer use cases that show exactly what clean recovery looks like in action. Read the full Press Release here. 🔗 Learn more about Elastio’s platform: elastio.com🔗 Discover Cloud303’s capabilities: cloud303.io