It’s Time to Attack Your Ransomware Recovery Strategy
For healthcare organizations, experiencing a cyberattack is no longer a matter of if—it’s a matter of when. Developing a clear ransomware recovery strategy is your best defense.
Our free Cyber Attack Survival Guide for Healthcare lays out the plan of attack needed to have a fighting chance against ransomware. This survival guide features essential information, including:
Without a ransomware response plan, your organization remains vulnerable. Download your Cyber Attack Survival Guide for Healthcare now—it’s free!
IDC’s 21-page Business Value Solution Brief, The Business Value of Forward Networks (doc #US52128624, June 2024), quantifies how the vendor’s network-digital-twin platform turns insight into hard cash. IDC interviewed enterprises that had run Forward Enterprise for roughly three years and mapped their operational KPIs to its Business Value model, converting them into annualised dollars and full-time-equivalent (FTE) hours.$14.2 million in average annual benefits, broken down into $7.7 M from greater stability and reliability, $2.9 M from staff productivity and $3.6 M from other operational efficiencies.95.8 FTEs worth of time returned each year.33 % fewer unplanned-downtime incidents and 55 % faster mean-time-to-repair, preventing about 180 000 hours of lost productivity.Incident-response teams work 34 % faster; compliance/audit tasks 10 % faster.Network deployments finish 71 % sooner; change-planning/testing is 36 % faster; production fixes arrive 44 % faster.Forward Enterprise builds a mathematically exact, continuously updated digital twin of multi-vendor, hybrid-cloud networks. Engineers query reachability, policy and configuration drift in seconds and run “what-if” simulations before changes. This eliminates manual CLI hunts, shortens root-cause analysis, prevents misconfigurations and surfaces licence waste, underpinning the monetised savings above.
Customers also reported quicker security investigations (thanks to instant path analysis), smoother cloud migrations, clearer executive-level reporting and higher team morale as reactive “fire-fighting” declined.
IDC concludes that the platform typically pays for itself in under twelve months and then delivers a durable, measurable ROI. For organisations wrestling with complex, hybrid networks, a digital-twin strategy emerges as both an operations accelerator and a business enabler, aligning network health with broader risk-reduction and growth objectives.
The "Top 7 Trends in Endpoint Security for 2023" report provides valuable insights into the evolving landscape of endpoint protection. It emphasizes the increasing importance of Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA), which operates on the principle that no user or device should be inherently trusted, thereby enhancing security through strict access controls and continuous monitoring.
The report also highlights the shift towards cloud-native endpoint security, offering scalability and real-time protection, especially vital with the rise of remote work. Additionally, the adoption of thin-managed operating systems is discussed, noting their role in reducing attack surfaces by securely connecting to cloud-based resources.
The integration of Extended Detection and Response (XDR) platforms is presented as a means to streamline security operations by consolidating data from various sources. Furthermore, the report underscores the significance of a human-centric approach to security, advocating for comprehensive employee training and fostering a culture of security awareness.
Advancements in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solutions are also covered, highlighting features like proactive threat hunting and automated responses. Lastly, the report discusses the role of security orchestration and automation in improving incident response times and operational efficiency.
Forward Networks co-founder Nikhil Handigol explains how organisations can harness agentic AI in networking and security without jeopardising reliability.
What makes AI “agentic” – Unlike chatbots, agentic systems pursue goals, choose their own tools and act autonomously. Market researchers expect the segment to surge from US $5.1 billion in 2025 to more than US $47 billion by 2030, and Gartner predicts that one-third of enterprise software will embed such capabilities by 2028. Upside for networks – Agents can:remediate newly disclosed vulnerabilities or block malicious traffic,resolve connectivity issues and reroute flows around failures,analyse patterns to predict and prevent impending outages. These abilities promise dramatic efficiency gains for short-staffed IT teams and better user experience. Risks to manage – Because an agent can act without human oversight, a mis-trained model or bad data could break compliance, introduce downtime or even cause physical harm. “Trust but verify” must therefore guide every deployment.Build the data bedrock – Autonomy is only as sound as the data it relies on. Enterprises need a complete, accurate record of every device, configuration and packet path. A network digital twin—a mathematically precise, continuously updated software replica of the live environment—provides that single source of truth. Digital twins as guardrailsPre-change simulation: Before any AI-driven or manual change, test it exhaustively in the twin to catch policy violations, compliance breaks or connectivity loss.Continuous verification: Twin-based rules monitor live behaviour and alert operators to drift or emergent problems. With this safety layer, CIOs can accelerate agentic AI adoption while preserving control.Bottom line – Agentic AI’s promise in networking is real, but benefits accrue only if robust data pipelines and digital-twin guardrails are in place. When those prerequisites are met, AI agents can handle routine operations and incident response, freeing humans for higher-value work and increasing organisational resilience.