In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, organizations face mounting cybersecurity challenges, especially with the proliferation of SaaS applications in their tech stack. VMblog recently sat down with Andy Fernandez, Senior Director of Product Marketing at HYCU, to discuss the company’s latest innovation: HYCU R-Shield.
Building on their strong start to 2025, which included numerous awards and expanded support for applications like Google BigQuery, Box, and iManage, HYCU is focusing intensely on cyber resilience across all environments. With the average organization now using over 200 SaaS applications – each representing a potential security vulnerability – Fernandez explains how HYCU’s comprehensive approach to data protection is addressing the growing threat landscape where attackers increasingly target cloud and SaaS environments rather than well-defended data centers.
VMblog: It has been a busy start to 2025 for HYCU, with a number of awards and accolades, introduction and support for new SaaS applications and cloud services including Google BigQuery, Box, iManage and others, why the focus on cyber resilience, what makes this initiative so important?
Andy Fernandez: Yeah, Dave, you are right. It has been a strong start to the year for HYCU.
Almost three years ago, we introduced R Cloud because we saw the future of data protection was not just about servers or virtual machines. It was about protecting everything. SaaS, cloud, all of it. And we have been focused on that ever since.
Just in the last few months, we added support for new SaaS, Cloud and hybrid workloads. From Box to Nutanix NDB and even patented, atomic data protection for ML/AI workloads. And, we joined Dell’s Extended Technologies Complete Program, which makes it even easier for customers to protect their cloud and SaaS workloads without missing a beat.
Now, when we talk about cyber resilience, here is what we are seeing.
Yes, ransomware is still a threat. But more and more, attacks are hitting cloud and SaaS customers or sometimes even their providers directly. Supply chains.
And so, you must think, if you are a bad actor, are you going to go after a locked down data center with layers of backup and recovery, or are you going to look for a SaaS app where protection is often an afterthought? Where there might not be an immutable, customer-controlled copy of the data at all?
Right now, the average organization is using over 200 SaaS apps. That is a lot of doors left unlocked. And with the rise of GenAI-powered social engineering, it is getting easier to find a way in.
That is why we built R-Shield. Because it is not enough to protect part of your data anymore. You have to protect all of it: SaaS, cloud, everything critical to how you operate.
VMblog: How does HYCU R-Shield work?
Fernandez: Well Dave, first off, when we set out to build R Shield, we were not looking to throw a bunch of bolt-on products at the problem. That is not our way.
We wanted something built in. Something that gave HYCU customers a real cyber resilience fabric. One that lets them detect threats, protect their data, and recover, no matter what comes their way.
At its core, R-Shield delivers three outcomes. And they are simple, but powerful.
First, Always Protecting.
Customers can rest easy knowing their backup appliances are resilient and military-grade. Their attack surface i s near zero. Practically invisible to bad actors.
And their workloads (all of them, and I mean all of them) are protected with immutable, customer owned backups that live completely offsite. We achieve that with our technology, and a key differentiator we call R-Lock.
Second, Always Observing.
Customers can see their entire data estate at-a-glance. They can spot protection gaps. They can identify anomalies tied to specific applications. They can even scan for ransomware, without ever giving up control of their data.
Third, Always Ready to Recover.
If something happens, a failure, an attack, even a mistake by a cloud provider, customers know they can recover with speed and confidence. Whether it is an entire application, or just a single object, recovery is quick, easy, and reliable. And, something I am especially proud of, with R-Shield, customers can perform offline recoveries too.
Think about it. If a cloud provider accidentally deletes customer data. Or, if a SaaS platform suffers a supply chain attack, customers still have access to their protected data.
They can bring back Jira, Box, and other critical applications, offline, outside the service itself. That is real control. That is real confidence.
Now, there are a lot of capabilities built into R Shield. But at the end of the day, the promise is simple:
You are protected. You are notified when something is wrong. And when you need to recover, you can, without any strings attached.
VMblog: How can someone learn more about HYCU R-Shield?
Fernandez: Anyone interested in learning more about HYCU R-Shield should check out our webinar on April 29th, Full Stack Cyber Resilience for SaaS, Cloud and On-prem, with a replay to follow. Or, you can find more information at HYCU R-Shield.
VMblog: What’s next for HYCU? What further cyber resilience updates can we expect to build on R-Shield?
Fernandez: What’s next? There are always going to be new threats. There’s going to be new workloads that are being exploited, especially in the world of SaaS. As we have said and is commonly known, there are conservatively more than 30,000 SaaS applications. HYCU is going to continue its mission to deliver universal data protection and to make sure that customers never have a bad day due to data loss or lack of recovery.
We continue to focus on the platforms we currently support as well as adding support for critical SaaS applications and cloud services.
Our goal is always to give customers full coverage, not limited liability.
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