Episodes

It was a dark and stormy night in 1993 when paris (the database server) went down. It would be a night the new backup admin would never forget because he couldn't restore the database from backup. The only bright side of that very sad story is that it launched a career. Yes, that's the night W. Curtis Preston started his path toward Mr. Backup. Hear him tell the story in his own words, in the middle of the backup to basics series about backing up databases. Avoid the mistake that could have (but...

Are you backing up all the things you should be backing up? In this latest episode of our Backup to Basics series, Mr. Backup & Prasanna look at the list of the traditional things we think about backing up: servers, databases, laptops, mobile devices, file servers, virtualization servers, etc. The big question tackled in this episode is what of these things should you be backing up? Mr. Backup, of course, takes a pretty hard line about backup, but he may surprise you on some of his exceptions. W...

You know how we tell you to limit the amount of privilege each admin gets, in order to limit the blast radius if their account is compromised? What if you could apply that concept to applications that use private data to accomplish their task? We blindly give everything we have on each person to just about any app that needs anything. But if you had an app that only needs first name and email address, why not just give it that? And if it asks for more than that, what if you had a way to give it ...

I was shocked to learn that my favorite password manager had a few known vulnerabilities, and you might be shocked too! We found this great research paper from the University of York, and invited one of the co-authors on to discuss it. Siamek Shahandasthi, an Associate Professor from the University of York, explained all the vulnerabilities discussed in the paper, and why each is important. I was able to verify that at least one is still found in my current password manager. How many are in your...

In our latest episode of the Backup to Basics series, we talk about what I think is the most important invention in my career: deduplication. Without dedupe, much of what we do in backup and recovery, and disaster recovery, would simply not be possible. Without dedupe there really is no disk backup market; there is no cloud backup market. I'd be out of a job! What is dedupe, anyway, and how does it work? What are the different kinds of dedupe and does that matter? You should learn a lot about th...

An incident response plan is the key to successfully surviving a ransomware attack, and it's a bit like Dramamine. The time to get one is too late to get one. @Vmiss (Melissa Palmer) joins us again to talk about this important topic. We talk about the important role cyber insurance companies can play in helping you find an IR team and helping you develop a plan. (They can actually force you to do so in order to get coverage.) @vmiss was a blast to talk to again, and we're sure you'll enjoy this ...

We have talked about this a lot on the pod, and now we have someone that can explain what you actually do with your network when you get a ransomware attack. It's Tom Hollingsworth from Gestalt IT, and we're excited to have him on the pod. Some of his recommendations of course, require some configuration in advance. We talk about VLANs, SEIM and access management tools, and why many networking admins are terrified of the "reject all" concept that would actually make your network much more resili...

Sheltered Harbor is a non-profit organization dedicated to making sure financial organizations are able to recover after a cyber attack. Even if you're not a financial institution, there is a lot to learn hear. They've done a lot of work to make this standard practical in the real world. If nothing else, you can review what they ask orgs to do and see if you can apply it to your own environment. We once again have Eric Bursley to guide us through the topic. Even Mr. Backup learned something! Me...

Today we're visited by Scott McCrady, the CEO of Solcyber, a leading managed security service provider. He says they're changing the model of how small and medium-sized companies secure their infrastructure against attacks, without any of the typical upfront cost or ongoing maintenance hassles of traditional methods. Have you tried securing your environment, only to suffer "alert fatigue?" Scott feels your pain and has fixed this by doing all of that as a service, which you pay for like a typica...

How great is it to discuss your favorite topics, learn something new, and have a great time all at the same time? That's what this episode is like. @vmiss (AKA Melissa Palmer) came on the pod for the first time this week. I've read a lot of her content and tweets over the years, and it was great to finally put a face to the name. She knows her stuff when it comes to security, since she was actually working in it before she got into VMware. It was a great conversation I think you'll learn a lot f...

We've talked a bit on this podcast about ransomware groups targeting Windows-based backup servers, and Veeam specifically. There's a new product on the market targeted at this problem, and it's called Blocky for Veeam from Grau Data. Today we have the founder & CEO of Grau Data, Herbert Grau, and their head of North American operations, David Cerf. What we didn't know until recording this episode is that these are the same people that used to make the gigantic Grau tape libraries that is used co...

LastPass made some serious blunders: how they responded to the hack in August, code they created before August, and how they configured their backup system. All of that came to a head at the end of 2023 when the hackers from August used stolen credentials to download a backed up copy of customer information. Most of it was encrypted, but they still gained a lot of information. Many are calling for customers to leave the product. However, even if you're not a lastpass customer, there are lessons ...

Today (Jan 23) marks 30 years to the day that W. Curtis Preston joined the backup industry. Fresh out of the US Navy and wanting to make a name for himself, he joined MBNA, a 35-billion dollar credit card company as "the backup guy." Within seven years he would write the industry's first book dedicated to backup, and since that time, he's gone on to be the world's leading expert in backup and recovery. What were backups like in 1993? How have things changed over the years? And how did he apapt t...

The latest in our Backup to Basics series is about making sure hackers don't delete, encrypt, or exfiltrate your backups as part of a ransomware attack. (Our Backup to Basics series reviews topics from Curtis' latest book Modern Data Protection, which you can download at druva.com/e-book.) We talk about how and why hackers are specifically targeting your backup system to either disable it or use it as a source for exfiltration. Then we talk about a number of things you can do to defend your back...

Hear the incredible story of Albert Uy, who was handed a two-year project that had already wasted 18 months. They told him he had four months to complete it. He looked at that timeline and told them there was only one way he could do, by switching horses in mid-stream. Not only did they finish it in time; they finished it early. Albert has also managed backup teams for many years, so before we cover this project story, we talk about backup has progressed over the years. We also talk about how mu...

Nothing but the best for our listeners! Curtis and Prasanna review their favorite episodes from 2022, from the time Curtis had to restore Backup Central to the shocking outage at Rackspace ( which is still ongoing!). This is your chance to catch up on what you missed last year as we prepare for a new year! Here are links to all the episodes discussed. Happy New Year! Mr. Backup Forced to Restore Backup Central Restore Test Failed to Bad Documentation Security expert rips Okta for their response...

Tomorrow marks two weeks from when the RackSpace outage started on Dec 2, 2022. They confirmed it was via a ransomware attack and it is not. going. well. We're going to do a deeper dive into this once it is all over, but this is a first-blush look at what is happening and RackSpace's reaction to it. When we recorded this episode, their reaction was not looking good. I'm sad to say it's gotten even worse. Check it out! Mentioned in this episode: Interview ad

Ok, so maybe not the most interesting topic. ;) But we promise you, this episode has a great story that involves Mr. Backup being kidnapped by a client, basically because he had a backup level issue. Learn about full backups, incrementals, cumulative incrementals, differentials, numbered levels, tower of hanoi backups, and why all this matters. It turns out it matters a lot more these days for structured backups than filesystem backups, which have typically gone to an incremental forever setup. ...

This episode we have Boris Agranovich, who has been a risk manager for decades, and speaks SIX languages (Russian, Ukrainian, Hebrew, Dutch, English, and Spanish). How amazing is that? He started the Global Risk Community, the largest online community for risk managers, and it's doing very well. We talk about the differences between what we do (as IT risk managers) and what he does, where he's managing risk for the entire organization. Fascinating guy with a unique perspective. Mentioned in thi...

Archive is NOT backup, and hopefully this episode will help you understand how/why that is the case. In this continued romp through W. Curtis Preston's Modern Data Protection, we explore the definition of archive, and how different it is from backup. You should have no trouble understanding the difference between the two after listening to this episode. As usual, Mr. Backup fills in the definition with interesting stories of what happens when you confuse backup and archive. Enjoy! Mentioned in ...

As we continue our "Backup to Basics" series, we touch on one of the most important questions of all: what is backup and restore? (And how does it different than archive and retrieve?) The answer to these questions are both simple and nuanced. It's important to have a solid understanding of backup and restore in order to understand how archive is different. Reminder: You can download a complimentary copy of Mr. Backup's latest book, Modern Data Protection here: https://druva.com/ebook. Mention...

This episode follows the previous one in a very interesting way. We have a guest, Eric Bursley, whose job is to divine business and technical requirements from a vendor perspective at Presidio, an IT solutions provider. He consults with customers and helps them get from "I want" to "I need." This was a fascinating conversation that took a turn into (surprise) ransomware. Eric is a fan of the pod and knows his stuff. As mentioned in the podcast, here is a link to the music video that is the them...

We say it all the time: your backup requirements must be based on business/organizational needs. If you keep that mind, not only will your organization be better off, it'll be easier to get approval for the new backup system you want. This episode of our Backup to Basics series goes right to that core idea, and we get advice directly from one of our favorite guests: Jeff Rochlin. He is now the Head of Technical Operations at the LA Studio of Framestore, a visual effects company. In his 30+ year ...

If you have sometimes wondered if your apps should be in a public cloud, private cloud, or in your own datacenter, have we got the episode for you. And we'll also talk about how to protect those apps regardless of where they reside. We looked hard for an unbiased cloud expert, and I think we hit gold. We found Sagi Brody, the CTO of Opti9, an MSP that supports both public and private clouds, as well as on-premises backup infrastructure! We talk extensively about which types of things are appropr...