Delphix has made some bold claims about its new Data Vault product tech, which it says can protect the company’s crown jewels from ransomware raiders.
The firm started out as a database virtualized golden copy supplier and has evolved organically into a programmable data infrastructure supplier. Its Data Platform software automates data collection from databases and ERP sources running on X86 servers, mainframes, or in the public cloud, and provides the data on demand for test and dev, and other uses.
Delphix said each software engine can connect to multiple source apps and provides virtual databases and files for tens to hundreds of environments. Each virtual dataset is provisioned as an independent network mount. The new capability enables Delphix engines to be configured as data vaults that isolate good data in a tamper-proof, read-only repository.
Jedidiah Yueh, Delphix’s CEO, issued a quote: “Ransomware attacks are no longer just a concern for unsecure enterprises. They are becoming national security threats. As technology advances, so does the sophistication of cyber attackers. Legacy solutions such as once-a-day backups and closed-box data approaches fail to safeguard businesses.”
The setup
The Delphix Data Platform software is built on a scale-out architecture, with data engines that can be deployed on-premises, across network security zones, data centres, and multi-cloud environments. Different engines can be linked using configurable, changed-block replication across secure networks. Data can be isolated, continuously protected, made immutable, and secured to prevent tampering and data loss.
According to Jim Mercer, research director, DevOps & DevSecOps at IDC: “COVID-19 vastly increased the risk to organisations of insider attacks as the number of remote workers requiring access to systems and applications rose. The reality is traditional security technologies are simply ineffective against this class of attack.”
In theory every piece of data looked after by the Delphix Data Platform can now be sent to a Data Vault and preserved with a defined retention period behind a virtual airgap so that not even administrators can change it. As ransomware attacks largely depend upon a successful initial phishing or similar attack to gain internal network entry then, (again in theory) the attackers simply won’t be able to access and encrypt any Data Vault-held data.
