Queensland-based systems integrator Aliva has developed ransomware defence solutions that are “like an insurance policy” for Redland City Council following an “unprecedented level of ransomware attacks”.

Redland City Council hired Aliva to install Rubrik data protection and backup to protect itself from an increasing number of ransomware attacks amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Glynn Henderson, the chief information officer of Redland City Council, said Rubrik's immutable backups and ability to quickly restore following a successful attack is like an insurance policy against ransomware.

“We’re witnessing an unprecedented level of ransomware attacks targeting our organisation, which I chalk up to attackers thinking councils are too preoccupied with COVID-19 to mount an effective defence,” said Glynn Henderson, the chief information officer of Redland City Council, as reported by ARN.

The council said its IT team previously lost days managing an ageing backup and data protection solution that was becoming “prone to failure”. With the help of Aliva, backups are now entirely automated and reduced to only a few minutes every morning using Rubrik's dashboard and email notifications. It has not yet experienced backup failures so far.

“Because we weren’t losing time managing backups, we had more capacity to rapidly scale and refine our remote work capability,” Henderson said.