Core provider Jack Henry reported an uptick in the number of financial institutions integrating its backup and recovery solutions in response to this year’s escalation in ransomware attacks.
The Gladiator Centurion Enterprise-Level Recovery (CELR) solution is backing up 80% more financial data than it was 18 months ago, according to the Missouri-based Jack Henry. CELR backs up a bank’s data in encrypted file transmission then moves it into storage. This ensures that if a bank is targeted by a ransomware attack that has altered its data and wants a payout to correct it, the bank has an offline record to restore its systems, Stacey Zengel, senior vice president and president of Jack Henry Banking, told Bank Automation News.
“The key thing you have to have encryption. You have to have several copies as well, because you might have gotten compromised with ransomware five days ago,” Zengel said. “And that’s usually where [hackers] operate, they’ll sneak something in and then, you know, a few days go by and all of a sudden you have an issue.” More than 300 banks and credit unions are using the core provider’s CELR solution, she added.
CELR provides cloud-based backup and recovery by installing software at the bank that sends a backup of a bank’s servers and third-party enterprise systems offsite to Jack Henry’s facility located 175 feet underground in Branson, Mo. Jack Henry’s backup solution backs up to air-gapped cold storage. Air gapped means the data is taken offline so it’s secure from cyberattack. Cold storage – in some cases relies on pulling tapes to back up – costs less but is slower to retrieve than “hot storage,” which is used by always-connected cloud providers such as Amazon and Google. If an emergency or disaster occurs, the financial institution uses a virtual server recovery module to remotely access the backed-up systems from a Centurion recovery center.
The air-gapped cold storage is key to the $293.9 million Citizens Bank & Trust’s disaster recovery planning, Senior Vice President Annette Hord said in a press release. The bank is headquartered in Campbellsville, Ky. “Today, with added vulnerabilities from ransomware attacks, knowing that backup is in air-gapped cold storage is vital to our continuity planning,” Hord said. “It’s an added layer of defense that can preserve our data and our reputation as a trusted financial institution.”
Jack Henry recently launched another security feature called SecurePort, a solution that helps banks provide end-users with timely access to their accounts in case bank systems fail. SecurePort moves critical data into a source vault that is encrypted, unchangeable, and completely separated from the bank’s infrastructure and resiliency planning, with a designated restoration platform. An early adopter is the $1.2 billion Las Vegas-based Meadows Bank.
This year has been marked by high-profile ransomware attacks, including the Colonial pipeline attack and the REvil attack on meat supplier JBS S.A. which paid out an $11 million ransom to the Russia-linked ransomware gang. There’s more at stake than just attacks: Last week, the Biden administration announced it will be more rigorous about tracing ransomware paid out to hackers, a move that could impact banks and other financial institutions.
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