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Why Your Business Needs To Protect Its Data At The Hardware Level

Written by Mark Hargreaves | Oct 18, 2022 12:45:00 PM

In most cases, technological developments are worth celebrating. Over the past five years alone, our technology strategies have become more efficient and integrated than ever before. Unfortunately, the same advancements that are used to develop a streamlined IT infrastructure are also used by data miners, malware, and viruses.

Years ago, cybersecurity was carried out using software, and for a while, that was enough — cyberthreats were not able to penetrate further. While an unchecked virus could cause serious damage, an equally clever application could protect your data. But as technology has evolved, so have malicious events.

Software-based security can easily be changed in a cyberattack. If your protection software is compromised, there could be nothing to stop your data from being compromised or hijacked.

The last few years have shown that software and data are not the only things at risk in a cyberattack. Your hardware can also be compromised. It is no longer enough to protect your software and data; a comprehensive security strategy needs to include hardware-based infrastructure. This is especially true when it comes to threats to servers.

Spiceworks defines hardware security as “the protection of physical devices from threats that would facilitate unauthorized access to enterprise systems.” These physical devices include firmware, BIOS, network cards, Wi-Fi cards, motherboards, graphic cards, and all the other parts that make up your system.

Cybersecurity Threats Come With A Heavy Cost


Technology has made our lives much easier, but when technology unexpectedly fails, your business can be left in the dark. If your hardware is compromised by a cyberthreat, the cost to your enterprise can be immense.

In fact, a 2020 study from ITIC reported that a server outage costs a median of $9,600 per minute. That is a staggering $576,000 an hour. The scary thing is, these costs are expected to grow with time. It’s also important to not that this estimate does not include the damage done to your business’s reputation.

When your business experiences a security breach, consumers are also affected. Because of recent events, consumers are more cautious about who they trust with their data. If your customers believe your servers are vulnerable, they will be hesitant to trust your company. It is important that you, as an IT leader, prevent this snowball effect by giving customers a good reason to trust you with their data. At the end of the day, a customer’s data is their most powerful asset, aside from their employees.

Dell EMC PowerEdge Servers Are The Next Generation In Cybersecurity


One of the best ways to increase brand loyalty and trust is to never have a security breach to begin with. This is a tall task, but Dell EMC can help. They have created a solution to the growing concern of hardware-level security threats with their PowerEdge servers. Rather than adding cybersecurity protection as an afterthought, Dell’s PowerEdge servers use security systems that extend across every aspect of the server.

With PowerEdge servers, your business can rest assured that all areas of your system are protected, including:

  • Server firmware
  • Data stored in the system
  • The operating system
  • Peripheral devices
  • Management operations within the server

Because cybersecurity begins at the ground level, your business can build a process that fits its needs. This also allows for security controls and management tools that extend across hardware and firmware.

All in all, this makes for a highly personalized security system that protects your valuable data, quickly detect system threats, anomalies, breaches, or unauthorized operations, and recover from malicious events.

Dell EMC 14th and 15th generation PowerEdge servers also use a Cyber Resilient Architecture which includes:

  • Effective Protection: Hard-drive encryption, silicon-based root-of-trust, secure booting, signed firmware updates, dynamic system lockdown, and enterprise key management.
  • Rapid Recovery: Automated BIOS recovery, rapid OS recovery, and rapid system erasure.
  • Reliable Detection: Persistent event logging, configuration and firmware drift detection, chassis intrusion detection, and auditing of logs.

Conclusion

Dell EMC’s PowerEdge servers offer a solution to the growing concern over cyberthreats that target hardware, especially servers. If you would like to learn more about how you can integrate Dell EMC’s PowerEdge servers into your enterprise, contact WEI today to get started.

Next Steps: Discover more about refreshing your servers and enhancing digital transformation by downloading our tech brief, Accelerating IT Modernization With Server Refresh.