City of Milpitas Deploys BackupAssist CryptoSafeGuard to Protect Against Ransomware Attack

BackupAssist announced that the City of Milpitas, California has deployed its CryptoSafeGuard software to protect its data and city services from a ransomware attack.

The City of Milpitas is a California-based public services organization serving a progressive community that is an integral part of the high tech Silicon Valley. Its Information Services Department provides key services to all City departments including strategic automation planning, coordination of system procurement and implementation, and management of technology projects to fulfill customer-defined functional requirements.

The department is also responsible for developing and maintaining the City's technical architecture and infrastructure, and providing implementation for and support of all automated data communications systems.

Since the City of Milpitas is a public services organization that depends on support from taxpayer dollars, the Information Services Department needed to exercise caution in budget allocation when considering new services and solutions. Despite lacking an enterprise-sized budget, the City still needed to find a way to protect the organization and its employees against potential ransomware attacks.

Mike Luu, Information Services director for the City of Milpitas, said: "We are only too well aware of the rapid proliferation in the type of malicious software that, if not properly prepared for, could block access to the City's computers and data for employees while disrupting City services for residents."

Knowing his department would be negligent if it didn't find an effective way to invest in trustworthy ransomware protection, Luu was determined to identify a dependable solution that was also cost-effective. Failure to do so quickly would put the City of Milpitas at risk of a hacker demanding payment of a large sum in order to regain access to the City's sensitive files, information and services.

After considering various solutions, Luu selected CryptoSafeGuard from BackupAssist.  One of the key features that helped Luu differentiate CryptoSafeGuard from other solutions is the fact that it could be easily and smoothly integrated with the organization's several existing layers of security products-without investing too many of the city's resources. For example, the tools from BackupAssist not only work on Microsoft Windows servers, but also complement anti-malware solutions, firewalls, and endpoint security.

The backup and disaster recovery tools from BackupAssist helped to efficiently deliver the extra protection and business continuity that the City of Milpitas needed. By complementing existing anti-malware solutions, CryptoSafeGuard added another layer of data-level detection, providing additional shielding for critical backups.