Today we live in a world of not if, but when. We’re not talking about global warming or the presidential election, well not here at least. We’re talking about getting hacked. As strong as the efforts are going into cybersecurity and hacking prevention, it’s a losing game. Smart people are putting money into thinking about recovery. How fast can they implement a disaster recovery plan after an incident to minimize downtime and impact to business losses that multiply over time?

Beyond data protection and backup is the idea of infrastructure recovery. Examples range from minor nuisance and undetected breaches to high profile events like hackers knocking the Ukrainian power grid offline, cutting power to thousands of homes in December.

The world is taking note. Speaking about the incident to the RSA cybersecurity conference, National Security Agency Director Admiral Michael Rogers said, “This wasn’t the last we’re going to see of this. That concerns me.”

Disaster recovery with Uplogix

Uplogix plays an important role when it comes to infrastructure protection and recovery. We’re seeing increased interest from customers and potential customers that are much more alarmed about the possibilities than Admiral Rogers sounds.

First, with Uplogix, all management of networking devices can be moved out-of-route. Devices can be configured to only accept management traffic from an Uplogix Local Manager over the console port. This “locks down” the device to potentially malicious outside traffic aimed at changing configurations, powering down or other unauthorized changes.

Second, Uplogix gives you the tools you need to rebuild quickly after a hack. Since a Local Manager is a state-aware console server, recovery from an unauthorized change can take place nearly immediately. Last-known or golden configurations can be pushed to devices and secure out-of-band access ensures you’ll be able to get to remote devices even when the primary network is down or degraded.

Another option is for Uplogix to put network devices into a “safe mode” during an incident. Maybe you don’t know the extent of the damage or if it is contained and want to limit network functionality. Before you go into disaster recovery mode, Uplogix can be used to push an appropriate configuration to one device, or to thousands deployed across your network.

As you continue the never-ending task of adapting and updating your cybersecurity plan, take some time to flip your thinking from “if” to “when,” and consider all of your options. The cost of lost data can be considerable, but the cost of lost business options can have an exponential impact over time. How fast can you recover? How much does that concern you?