As the dust particles settle on the epic finale of Stranger Things, we can’t help but see some parallels between Hawkins and a typical enterprise storage and backup environment. Bet you’ve been thinking the same thing, right?
Your Hawkins
The world that everyone interacts with, every day. The data your employees rely on lives here, the applications they use are run from here, the systems your customers use to access your products and services are here too. Your production storage is your Hawkins.
Your digital citizens go about there everyday lives, safe in the knowledge there are people and systems designed to keep things running smoothly and to make sure the world is safe. Think of business continuity teams as the local government, and your cyber security team as Hawkins Police Department.
The Upside Down
Just like the Upside Down is a mirror of Hawkins, there’s a mirror of your production data. It’s right there, just out of sight and beyond the reach of your citizens. It’s your backup environment. A constantly evolving replica of your data world.
Almost every business has an ‘Upside Down’ and if you’re lucky, yours is free from evil. But ‘lucky’ is exactly the right word – because Predatar has uncovered malware in the backups of more than 90% of its users.
The unsettling reality is that your backups are very likely to be infected. Left unchecked, just like the Mind Flayer’s tendrils, the infection will spread. Silently, turning your backup environment into a deeply dangerous world.
The Abyss
Just like the Upside Down in Stranger Things is a bridge to access – and ultimately – to destroy the real world by plunging it into the Abyss, cybercriminals are infecting your backups as a part of a bigger, more sinister plan. They want to take your entire organisation offline and make recovery impossible.
This is the Abyss – a world of chaos and total operational paralysis.
Staying away from the Abyss
Here are 3 takeaways from Stranger Things to help you keep your organisation’s ‘Hawkins’ safe, and avoid plunging into the Abyss.
Fight evil at the source
Fighting demidogs, possessed humans, Vecna, or even the Mind Flayer itself in Hawkins was never going to be enough. Just like the heroes of Stranger Things, you’ll need to get tooled-up and go hunting in the Upside Down.
Danger comes from all angles
The Mind Flayer took on many forms, but there were other threats at play too. Dr Brenner, the Russians, and the US Government all put the safety of Hawkins at risk.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that cybercrime is the only risk to your operational resilience. Untested software updates, hardware failures, human error, natural disasters, and more can put your resilience at risk.
You need super-powers
There is at least a dozen heroes in Stranger Things. Most don’t have any superhuman abilities. We love these characters, but lets be clear – Ultimate victory against the forces of evil simply wouldn’t have been possible without Eleven.
You need to get yourself some superpowers.
What next?
Become the Eleven of resilience with Predatar – Your operational resilience superpower. Predatar hunts down and eliminates signs of danger including malware and unrecoverable workloads in your backups and snapshots before they become a real world nightmare.
Watch the video to learn more, book a demo, or send us a message.
