Data exfiltration ranks high among the concerns for security leaders, especially with the rise of double extortion ransomware attacks. In these attacks, cybercriminals encrypt and exfiltrate the victim’s data, then threaten to expose it, increasing the pressure to pay ransom. Insider threats, whether malicious or unintentional, further compound the risk.
In some sectors, data theft can pose a more significant threat than ransomware. Take healthcare, for example. They handle and retain data such as names, Social Security numbers, and bank account information—a goldmine for cybercriminals. When sensitive data is stolen, organizations can face financial losses, reputational damage, legal and regulatory penalties, and cyber insurance impacts. That’s why boosting your capabilities to tackle these incidents is critical.
To address this challenge, Cohesity partnered with Zscaler to integrate our products and help our mutual customers stop sensitive data exfiltration. The integration enhances your “detect” and “respond” capabilities by helping you detect the unauthorized exfiltration of data and respond effectively. Available since January 2024, the combined solution uses Cohesity Data Cloud, our AI-powered modern data security and management platform that secures and manages your secondary data estate, and Zscaler Data Protection, which delivers integrated protection across all channels of data loss.
“You need to find the best vendors who work well together, with API integration, to deliver better value to customers,” Jay Chaudry, CEO, Chairman, and Founder of Zscaler, told Cohesity CEO and president Sanjay Poonen last year. This is precisely what Cohesity and Zscaler are doing. Our collaboration allows you to increase cyber resilience by using your existing investments in Cohesity and Zscaler. The initial implementation of our integration prevents potential data breaches, improves compliance for data assets subject to GDPR, HIPAA, and other regulations, and allows you to maximize your backup data by gaining security intelligence from it.
Cohesity DataHawk and Zscaler Data Protection in action
The integration uses Cohesity DataHawk, a SaaS threat-protection solution that provides comprehensive data security and recovery capabilities. DataHawk classifies sensitive and government-regulated data, including personally identifiable information (PII), PCI, and HIPAA, in your Cohesity backups of primary data sets across on-premises and edge. Zscaler Data Protection uses this information to fingerprint and index that data, monitor outbound traffic, and enforce your organization’s data loss prevention (DLP) policies, which may entail blocking potential exfiltration events and notifying your organization’s auditor when an event triggers a DLP policy.
Watch this video to see a demo of the integration.
Use backups of your production data for security intelligence
Amidst challenges around data exfiltration, customers have a significant opportunity to derive additional value from their backups. We estimate that for every terabyte of data in the production environment, ten terabytes of that data are backed up or replicated across hybrid clouds and multiclouds for various requirements such as backup and recovery, disaster recovery, and development and testing. With our AI-powered modern data security and management platform and team-oriented approach to cyber resilience, you can unlock the full potential of your backed-up data. Gain security intelligence from this data to enhance your cyber resilience with your existing security systems—without impacting your production environment.
The art of the possible expands with teamwork
Organizations must prepare for inevitable breaches while ensuring continuity and increasing cyber resilience. This is a massive undertaking, and no single vendor can do it alone. At Cohesity, we champion a collaborative approach, working with a trusted ecosystem of partners, including Zscaler. Our API-based collaboration protects more of your data estate, increases security operations efficiency, and reduces cyber recovery risks.
Learn more:
- Get the Cohesity and Zscaler integration from the Cohesity Marketplace and deploy it following this configuration guide.
- New DSPM integration with Cyera shows the power of open APIs
