With more enterprises and businesses adopting a hybrid work environment, NAS servers have played a crucial role in ensuring high availability data access for remote workers and storing sensitive data.
Despite that, IT environments are vulnerable to attacks even with stringent security measures in place, a phishing link or malicious file accessed on a computer and smartphone is all it takes to compromise an IT environment and expose data to attackers on any network attached devices.
Hence, we talked to Jason Sin, Sales Manager for Synology Malaysia, during the Synology Solutions Day held in Malaysia to understand how the leading NAS appliance company is helping enterprises in securing their data with its comprehensive range of NAS servers powered by the secure DiskStation Manager (DSM).
It’s great to have Synology back in Malaysia for a Solutions Day Event, we have seen Synology launch several innovative products and introduced new features in DSM 7.2 during COMPUTEX 2023. What do you have this time?
It’s great to be back here, Malaysia is one of our key markets in the region where we have many customers who love our NAS servers powered by the advanced DSM operating system. We are constantly bringing new features to our devices that properly secures our customer’s data.
This time, we are introducing new features to four key innovative solutions to the Malaysia market: Data Management, Data Protection, Productivity Enhancement and Surveillance, which we believe will greatly benefit various industries in Malaysia, as we realized many customers are switching from cloud based storage to Synology NAS, it is imperative that we continue to innovate in these areas based on our customer’s feedback.
Let’s talk about data protection. Cybercrime is on the rise and many Malaysian businesses have suffered losses due to ransomware and data leaks. What has Synology done to help businesses mitigate such risks?
At Synology, we can’t emphasize more on protecting our customer’s data and DSM operating system is what makes our customers so confident of storing data on a Synology NAS.
One of the key security features we have introduced is Immutable Snapshots and WriteOnce Shared folders, where snapshots of a folder can be performed in as little as 5 minutes and be reverted should it be compromised.
WriteOnce shared folders allow users to perform WORM (Write Once Read Many) for up to 30 days, this will allow users to only write and store new data in and prevent data from being maliciously deleted, which is extremely useful for customers who store sensitive data on our NAS.
Logging into a Synology NAS can be more secure as we allow our users to set up two-factor authentication, multi-factor authentication and even passwordless authentication to prevent service permission issues.
For even stringent security measures, we can set up ports and limit IP addresses to certain services and folders. For instance, we can have Malaysian IP addresses to view selected folders, and Taiwanese IP addresses to view the other set of folders.
Despite that, there’s still no 100% guarantee that hackers can’t gain unauthorized access to your data, which is why we recommend our customers to frequently perform IT security checks to ensure that all systems and our Synology NAS have been upgraded to the latest security patch, a strong password policy is also crucial to prevent unauthorized access to the NAS.
Has any Malaysian company taken advantage of these security features?
Yes, in fact we have a retail customer that recently got their domain attacked that causes files on their shared folders to be encrypted by ransomware, which thankfully they have previously created an Immutable Snapshot on their Synology NAS, they were able to quickly restore their files in no time while isolating the NAS from their network.
The Synology DSM operating system remains operational despite that as the customer has set stringent security policies to prevent unauthorized access, this is the reason why we recommend customers to perform a snapshot of their data in a timely manner to prevent such unfortunate events.
Cool. I’m glad to hear such a success story and it really increases the confidence of people in storing their data on a Synology NAS. Now, I’m really interested to learn what’s new on your productivity suite – Synology Office, as we are now embracing AI to help us work better, does Synology have something similar?
Yes, we have introduced Generative AI in Synology Office and MailPlus, which helps the user generate written content by simply requiring them to enter their requests in a chat box. For example, I can use it to write an email to tell you that I’m visiting you in Malaysia soon, translate an article to other languages and use it to search for information.
Next, we have Mail Merge, which can save a lot of effort if you are doing follow up on emails, as you only need to create a template with the recipients’ name and email, have it imported to the email you want to send and it will have the recipient’s name inserted automatically with their respective emails.
In what ways does Synology plan to continue evolving and expanding its offerings for the businesses in Malaysia to meet the changing needs and demands?
Synology is renowned for its storage solutions that prioritize simplicity, scalability, and security. Nevertheless, we consistently deliver solutions not only focused on data protection but also aimed at enhancing productivity and video surveillance. Our objective is to create a comprehensive data management ecosystem, serving as a one-stop solution for businesses. Looking ahead, we plan to further expand these solutions in Malaysia market.
Moreover, to align with emerging enterprise-focused trends, Synology is continuously researching and introducing cutting-edge data management technologies. Our plans include features such as scale-out capabilities, dedicated data protection, and high-performance products, all of which will be available in the coming year.