NetApp Enhances Cyber Resiliency with AI-Powered Ransomware Protection

NetApp® (NASDAQ: NTAP), the intelligent data infrastructure company, today announced enhancements to its portfolio of cyber resiliency offerings to strengthen security for our customers. With these new features, NetApp continues to innovate as the most secure storage on the planet.

NetApp is announcing the general availability of its NetApp ONTAP® Autonomous Ransomware Protection with AI (ARP/AI) solution, with 99 percent accuracy for detecting ransomware threats. Customers can use ARP/AI to monitor abnormal workload activity and automatically snapshot data at the point in time of attack, so they can respond and recover faster from attacks with the most accurate storage level security possible. Because ARP/AI uses machine learning to identify threats, NetApp will consistently release new models, and customers can non-disruptively update those models, independent of ONTAP updates, to defend against the latest ransomware variants and maintain the highest standards of data protection.

The solution was recently tested and validated by SE Labs, an independently owned and run testing company that assesses security products and services, which awarded ARP/AI a AAA rating for its strong ability to detect ransomware with 99 percent accuracy and no false positives in a simulation of real-world operating environments.

NetApp is also releasing updates to the BlueXP ransomware protection service for proactive data security and optimised protection and recovery. BlueXP now integrates with Splunk SIEM to simplify and accelerate threat response by informing stakeholders across an organisation’s security operations. BlueXP ransomware protection now leverages AI-driven data classification capabilities to ensure the most sensitive data is protected at the highest possible levels. BlueXP also has new User and Entity Behaviour Analytics (UEBA) integrations to identify malicious activity by user behaviour in addition to the ARP/AI-provided filesystem signals.

"NetApp is committed to keeping our customers’ data secure,” said Gagan Gulati, Vice President and General Manager, for Data Services at NetApp. “Data is the life blood of business and needs to be protected against malicious actors from both within and outside the organisation. Data storage systems are the last line of defense against a cybersecurity incident and NetApp takes that as a responsibility to provide the most secure storage on the planet.”

“NetApp is committed not only to data integrity, but also maintaining customer business continuity in restoring data in minutes or even seconds,” said Phil Goodwin, Research Vice President, IDC. “Security—specifically around ransomware protection—has been steadily increasing in visibility among top business leaders which is driving IT teams to look for technology built with a ‘secure-by-design’ philosophy. The advancements NetApp has made in leveraging AI to enhance security directly within enterprise storage through its ARP/AI and data classification capabilities are key differentiators for NetApp."