A recent cyber attack has been announced, issued by the US Government and the Office of the White House.
The announcement states:
“If you have not already done so, I urge our private sector partners to harden your cyber defenses immediately.”
<< Read Full Statement Here >>
A frightening announcement for sure but don’t become a helpless victim!
New customers are coming to us now regularly because they’ve been hit and crippled by a cyber or ransomware attack.
We don’t like seeing this.
And we don’t like informing the customer that they didn’t have adequate backup and their data is gone. I’ve made it my goal to do as much as possible to help and educate people so this doesn’t happen to them.
Since our focus is on SQL Server and the OS that SQL Server is running on, we have a few recommendations to help keep your SQL Servers Safe (our focus is not on webservers, firewalls or general networking).
Recommendations:
- Keep your SQL Servers up to date, and after you know the updates are complete, reboot one more time. We are seeing even after Windows thinks it is 100% up to date, one more reboot applies the final updates, and sometimes takes as much as an hour. If you need help with your SQL Server updates or Windows updates for your SQL Server, let us know, we can help.
- Be certain you have good backups of all your databases. Be certain those backups are stored somewhere they cannot be hit with a ransomware or cyber-attack. That may mean you are moving backups to cloud storage, or some backup appliance that has immutable storage. The key here is having the backups somewhere that the malicious software can’t reach. If you need help with your backup strategy, we can help. I also have a backup and recovery class available that covers these topics in addition to the standard SQL Server backups. http://SteveStedman.com/backup
- Be sure that you and your team are trained on social hacking and ransomware attacks to help reduce the chances of being attacked. I have built an absolutely free class on Ransomware awareness to help prepare your SQL Server if you are hit. These bad actors are making such an impact on the world with ransomware, I want to get this out to as many people as we possibly can. Truly no strings attached with this course on Ransomware Awareness and how it relates to your SQL Server: http://SteveStedman.com/ransomware
- Create a plan or a playbook that outlines the steps to recover in the event that something catastrophic happens with your SQL Server database. Then practice those steps so that you know you or someone on your team can do all the steps to get your system back online.
- Consider Stedman Solutions managed services. We can be part of your team to help you prepare, and for support if you are ever hit. https://stedmansolutions.com/services/dba-services/
Times have changed. The business standards of being able to apply updates every quarter are now a thing of the past. If you are not keeping up to date on your SQL and OS updates, your databases may be at risk!
Ask yourself this question:
“If the worst thing possible could go wrong with your SQL Servers and data loss, could you live with that?”
If your answer is no then you need a plan to be ready.
Need help with any of this, we are here. Just schedule a time that we can chat to discuss your needs.
Here is a link to my calendar: http://stevestedman.com/schedule
Please take advantage of our FREE ransomware awareness class. LINK TO COURSE
And for $39.95 you can learn everything there is to know about SQL Server backups! LINK TO COURSE
