As ransomware attacks become faster and more sophisticated, enterprises are rethinking where cyber defense begins.

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Cybersecurity teams have spent years building higher walls.

They deployed firewalls, endpoint protection platforms, security operations centres, threat intelligence feeds, and increasingly sophisticated detection tools. Yet ransomware continues to evolve, finding ways to move through networks faster than many organisations can respond.

The challenge is no longer identifying threats. Most enterprises already have tools capable of detecting suspicious activity. The real problem is what happens in the minutes immediately after an attack is discovered.

That gap between detection and response has become one of the most important battlegrounds in modern cybersecurity.

A new collaboration between NetApp and Cisco's Splunk division reflects a growing industry shift toward a different approach to cyber resilience. Rather than treating storage as a passive destination for data, enterprises are beginning to turn storage systems into active participants in security operations.

It represents a subtle but significant change in how organisations think about defending their most valuable digital assets.

The race against ransomware is becoming a race against time

The economics of ransomware have changed dramatically over the past decade.

Attackers no longer spend weeks or months moving through networks unnoticed. Many modern attacks are designed to spread rapidly, encrypt data quickly, and maximise disruption before security teams can react.

Artificial intelligence is only accelerating that trend.

Security teams now face an environment where every minute matters. The longer it takes to contain an attack, the greater the potential damage to business operations, customer trust, regulatory compliance, and financial performance.

That reality is forcing organisations to examine every layer of their technology infrastructure for opportunities to reduce response times.

Storage systems, historically viewed primarily as repositories for information, are increasingly being brought into that conversation.

According to NetApp, organisations need to move beyond traditional detection models and incorporate automated response capabilities directly into the environments where data resides.

“With AI accelerating both the speed and sophistication of cyberattacks, the window to respond has never been smaller,” said Sandeep Singh, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Platform at NetApp. “To limit the cost and impact of ransomware, organizations must act the moment a threat is detected, which means extending security automation into the storage layer where data lives. As the company delivering the most secure storage on the planet, NetApp is uniquely positioned to make storage an active part of a defense-in-depth strategy. By working with Cisco to enable Splunk SOAR workflows to take direct action on data stored in NetApp ONTAP®, we’re helping make a defense-in-depth security strategy simpler and more effective.”

The next phase of cybersecurity is automation

One of the defining trends in enterprise security today is the rise of security orchestration, automation, and response technologies, often referred to as SOAR.

These platforms help organisations automate repetitive security tasks, allowing teams to respond to threats more quickly and consistently.

The appeal is obvious.

Cybersecurity talent remains in short supply across the United States, while the volume of alerts generated by security tools continues to grow. Analysts often face thousands of potential incidents each day, creating an environment where speed and prioritisation become critical.

Automation helps close that gap.

The latest integration between NetApp and Splunk expands this concept by allowing security workflows to interact directly with NetApp ONTAP storage environments. Instead of merely generating alerts, automated workflows can take defensive actions that help prevent threats from spreading further.

Those actions can include isolating suspicious activity, creating snapshots of data, and taking storage volumes offline when necessary to prevent broader infection.

The goal is not simply faster response. It is reducing the amount of damage an attack can inflict before human intervention is required.

Why storage is becoming part of the security conversation

For many years, enterprise storage and cybersecurity teams operated in separate domains.

Storage administrators focused on performance, reliability, and uptime. Security teams concentrated on threat detection, prevention, and compliance.

As cyber threats have become more data-centric, those boundaries have started to disappear.

Today, attackers are increasingly targeting the information itself rather than the infrastructure surrounding it. That shift is pushing organisations to align storage and security operations more closely than ever before.

Cisco's security leadership sees this integration as a necessary evolution.

“Effective security strategies require visibility and action across the entire technology stack, including the data layer,” said David Dalling, GVP, Splunk Security at Cisco. “With the new NetApp Splunk SOAR playbook, ONTAP storage becomes an active participant in the security ecosystem, enabling organizations to contain threats directly targeting enterprise data. By connecting NetApp storage into Splunk SOAR workflows, we’re helping security and storage teams collaborate more seamlessly and respond to incidents with greater speed and confidence.”

The emphasis on visibility is particularly important.

Modern enterprises often operate across hybrid and multi-cloud environments, creating increasingly complex infrastructures that can be difficult to monitor comprehensively. Bringing storage telemetry into broader security workflows provides organisations with a more complete picture of what is happening across their environments.

Cyber resilience is becoming a boardroom issue

The growing focus on cyber resilience reflects a larger shift taking place across corporate America.

Executives are no longer evaluating cybersecurity solely through the lens of prevention. Instead, they are asking a different question: how quickly can the organisation recover when an attack occurs?

That distinction matters.

Many security leaders now assume that some attacks will eventually bypass preventative controls. The emphasis is shifting toward resilience, containment, recovery, and business continuity.

For boards and executive teams, the conversation increasingly centres on measurable outcomes such as reducing downtime, limiting operational disruption, protecting revenue, and maintaining customer confidence.

Technology vendors are responding by focusing less on standalone products and more on integrated ecosystems that enable organisations to move faster during incidents.

This broader trend is reflected in the NetApp and Splunk collaboration, which seeks to connect operational intelligence with automated action.

“The partnership between Splunk and NetApp helps customers run their businesses more securely and effectively, connecting operations across storage and security teams,” said Dallas Olson, Chief Commercial Officer at NetApp. “By giving customers real-time visibility into what’s happening across their environments, NetApp and Splunk enable enterprises to reduce disruption and optimize performance so they can use their data to drive measurable business outcomes.”

The future of enterprise security may start where the data lives

The cybersecurity industry has spent years focusing on networks, endpoints, identities, and applications.

Those areas remain essential. But as ransomware continues to evolve, another reality is becoming increasingly clear.

Data itself is emerging as the central point of defence.

That shift is driving a new generation of security architectures where storage systems, analytics platforms, and automated response tools work together rather than operating independently.

For enterprises facing growing cyber threats, the question is no longer whether they can detect an attack. Most already can.

The more pressing challenge is how quickly they can act once they know something is wrong.

In an era defined by AI-powered threats and increasingly sophisticated ransomware campaigns, the organisations that can compress that response window may ultimately be the ones that recover fastest, protect their operations most effectively, and maintain the trust of customers who depend on them.

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