Dell Microsoft collaboration emphasizes cyber resilience – News

Keeping out the cyber criminals isn’t enough; in the current climate, companies need a game plan for long-term cyber resilience.

Dell Technologies Inc. starts by assessing a customer’s security posture and then delivers targeted solutions to close the gaps. With the recent release of Dell PowerScale for Microsoft Azure, enterprises now have added flexibility to strengthen their defenses and recover quickly when breaches occur, according to Colm Keegan (pictured), senior consultant of product marketing at Dell.

“The big risk is that you think your capabilities are what they aren’t,” Keegan said. “The worst time to find that out is during a breach. The vast majority of IT professionals stated that their leadership overestimates their cyber readiness. We’re calling this the confidence versus capability gap.”

Keegan spoke with theCUBE’s Rob Strechay at Microsoft Ignite, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, News Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed Dell’s cybersecurity strategies and the collaboration with Microsoft. (* Disclosure below.)

Seeking true cyber resilience

Part of cyber resilience is company culture: Companies that test the security of their environments at least once a month are more likely to recover, according to Dell’s research. Cyber attackers are highly skilled and something as simple as forgetting to turn on multi-factor authentication could lead to a breach.

“At a bare minimum, let’s make sure that you’ve got a clean copy of your data that’s off the attack surface, and that you can recover from that so that if the unexpected happens, you’re reasonably confident you get that data back,” Keegan said.

In bringing Dell’s PowerScale capabilities to Azure, Dell is giving customers more options. There may be some overlap between Dell and Microsoft’s offerings, but the idea is to make Dell’s solutions available in the Azure Marketplace so companies can figure out exactly what “puzzle pieces” they need to be resilient.

“The cloud, in many respects, is one giant sandbox,” Keegan said. “You think of all the development work that goes on in the cloud; use that to your advantage. Spin up these workloads in the cloud, and then simulate a cyber event. Then see how good you are at recovery.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of News’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Microsoft Ignite:

(* Disclosure: Dell Technologies Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Dell nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or News.)

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