The arms race against cybercriminals is in full swing, and Unisys Stealth in combination with Dell EMC recovery has brought a new weapon to the fight against ransomware – enterprise must get onboard with their approach

You might think that Unisys was an out-of-date, irrelevant dinosaur with nothing new to offer—but think again! This solution is innovative and leading-edge, and it can save you heartache and a lot of money. The Unisys-Dell alliance has brought a new weapon to the battle that can give an enterprise the option to battle ransomware, break the cycle, and offer an alternative to paying the criminals.

There is an alternative to paying criminals—don’t let cybercriminals bleed you dry!

Unisys has integrated its Stealth solution with Dell EMC Cyber Recovery software in a bid to improve cyber-resilience and business continuity. We regularly bang on about needing a multi-layered defense-in-depth strategy at HFS, although this is with the acknowledgment that a determined attacker will always get through whatever IT puts in front of them. The Dell EMC Cyber Recovery with Unisys Stealth looks to give enterprises an alternative when criminals hijack their systems.

The biggest fear an organization has when ransomware locks it out of systems is that it won’t get its systems back even if they pay, which would be a double blow to an organization already losing money from disrupted day-to-day business.

This alliance has forged a secret weapon: a backup-and-recovery solution combined with high-grade security. The goals are to provide an enterprise with an alternative to paying ransomware and to enable an organization to secure its backup systems for use if its main systems are compromised.

Use a layered security approach, or risk an embarrassing breach

The solution defends against ransomware by isolating an organization’s corporate network from its backup, so if the corporate network is compromised, the organization can withdraw its data and continue business as usual with minimal disruption. In short, the combination of Stealth with Dell EMC Cyber Recovery provides both data isolation and business continuity capabilities to minimize an attack’s impact.

One of the defining features of this solution is its protection of the backup. Cybercriminals are clever, and they have long realized that when attacking an organization, they have to attack both the corporate network and the backup—they need to completely paralyze an enterprise’s systems and cause maximum disruption.

Dell’s Cyber Recovery vault dramatically reduces the attack surface by air gapping the cyber-recovery vault from the rest of the corporate network. Complementing this recovery is Unisys Stealth, which adds a cryptographic air gap in addition to the logical air gap to the recovery vault. Stealth’s cryptographic perimeter around the vault enables only the whitelisted users and devices to connect with the vault, based on user identity. Defense-grade encryption defends data against man-in-the-middle attacks, and Stealth’s cloaking ability disguises the entire recovery vault, making it undetectable by unauthorized users. Identity-based micro-segmentation isolates internal servers; for example, if the security analytics server attempts to gain unauthorized access to the recovery server, Stealth will prevent it from doing so (see Exhibit 1).

Exhibit 1: A double air gap and cloaking ability is the layered security enterprise needs

Source: Dell EMC Cyber Recovery with Unisys Stealth – Unisys Corp

Exhibit 2: Attackers will aim to not only bring down your corporate Network but also your back up

Source: Dell EMC Cyber Recovery with Unisys Stealth – Unisys Corp

There is little alternative to paying ransomware if you’re compromised; failing to prepare is preparing to suffer financially

Cybercriminals are constantly developing their armories to breach the enterprises’ defenses, and ransomware is just one of the weapons that have become increasingly deployed in this war. HFS Research has previously explained that industry leaders have been funding cybercriminals for years by paying the ransoms demanded. This ultimately led to a vicious cycle that saw cybercriminals growing in confidence and sophistication. We have all heard the horror stories about the financial damage ransomware is reaping. It has cost the City of Atlanta $2.6 million and the NHS £92 million.

There are few options but to pay cybercriminals if your systems are compromised. Paul Ducklin of Sophos suggested at the Digital Transformation Expo 2019 that one alternative to curbing the rise of ransomware would be to make the payment to criminals illegal—for government to step in and enact a law similar to the “We will not negotiate with terrorists” policy. Raimondo Montecuccoli famously noted that the things necessary for war were money, money, and money.

Theoretically, if victims weren’t allowed to pay ransoms, then cybercriminals would stop using the attack method because they would not be receiving the reward they seek. Unfortunately, things aren’t as clear cut as that. A policy like the one Paul suggested is difficult to police, and there is no guarantee that individuals and enterprises would not simply ignore the law. This lack of alternative means that enterprises must secure their networks to the best of their ability; most importantly, it is key that their system backups are well secured.

HFS’ viewpoint

Cybersecurity is a constant game of cat and mouse, and the cat is usually the cybercriminal. The Unisys-Dell solution is a significant step in the right direction when it comes to this game. They have rightly recognized that the criminals won’t just be going after an organization’s network but also their backup; therefore, they have focused their attention on the crown jewels of an organization— backup data. The solution acts as a drawbridge to a castle keep; the network is important, although with enough determination, its defenses can be broken, much like the outer walls of a castle, but the solution’s double air gap acts as a moat to the inner sanctum of the keep and keeps the data separated from the network. What’s special about the solution is Stealth’s ability to hide the vault with encryption and something I can only liken to Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak—if attackers can’t see the vault, they can’t attack it.

The Bottom Line: Unisys is an old-guard service provider with an innovative solution that truly makes a difference in the fight against cyber-crime. In combination with Dell EMC Cyber Recovery, it makes for a strong asset for any enterprise not looking to suffer from possible financial ruin.

Unisys has been fighting against the perception that it’s an old-school service provider with not much to offer but outdated ideas—well, it has truly blown this perception away with its undoubtedly innovative solution. Service providers have been battling for security budget for some time; Unisys has put its money where its mouth is and produced a solution that, in combination with Dell EMC Cyber Recovery, puts enterprises in a position to fight back against cyber-crime and not be held for ransom. Unisys’ leadership team argues that if you arrive at the market “on time,” you’re probably already too late.