What security feature in NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud is essential for customers concerned about ransomware?

The essential security feature for customers concerned about ransomware in the NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud is the WORM (Write Once, Read Many) capability. This feature allows users to configure storage to prevent modifications or deletions of data within a specified retention period. In the context of ransomware, which typically seeks to alter or encrypt files to extort payment, WORM capability provides a safeguard by ensuring that important files cannot be altered or deleted by malicious actors once they have been saved.

This protective measure reinforces data integrity and availability, enabling organizations to recover unaltered versions of files in the event of a ransomware attack. While inline antivirus scanning and data encryption are both important security measures, they do not directly prevent unauthorized changes to data. Snapshots also play a role in data recovery but do not offer the same level of protection as WORM capability, which explicitly restricts modification access.