re:Inforce 2025 brought together security professionals, AWS leaders, and cloud-native innovators to tackle today’s most pressing cybersecurity challenges. The theme that stood out loud and clear? When it comes to ransomware, it’s not enough to figure out how attackers get in; your recovery readiness matters most when it comes to getting your business back online.
Let’s unpack the biggest takeaways from the conference and what they mean for organizations building secure, resilient applications in AWS.
1. Leaked Credentials Dominate Ransomware Entry Points
One of the most eye-opening stats shared at re:Inforce: about 2 in 3 ransomware incidents in AWS can still be traced back to leaked credentials. That means attackers aren’t usually exploiting some zero-day vulnerability—they’re simply walking through the front door with stolen keys.
This reinforces the importance of having a clean room recovery strategy that enables you to recover to a new AWS account. However, many attendees and experts shared a common concern: that sounds too hard and expensive to implement, right?
💡 Arpio is uniquely equipped to resolve this complex challenge. Our platform is the cost-effective way to automate cross-account recovery, eliminating operational and financial barriers when safe, fast recovery is critical.
2. Cross-Account Recovery Is Make-or-Break for Your Cyberresilience
Some attendees probed further, asking, “Should I recover into a different AWS account, or is applying a Vault Lock strategy to my backups sufficient in my source environment?” The truth: cross-account recovery needs to be a first-class priority for ransomware resilience. Period. Vault locking is a strong tactic, but insufficient for full recovery. Locking down data in the source doesn’t help if the environment is compromised and you need clean room recovery.
💡 That’s where Arpio shines: we also integrate with AWS Vault Lock AND automate cross-account recovery, to add an extra layer of protection.
3. Recovery Confidence Hinges on the Ability to Recover Data Safely
Several customer questions at re:Inforce focused on real-world recovery challenges, like “What if my backup is corrupted but I have compliance mandates to preserve the data?” This is an especially important question for cases like law enforcement data storage, where restoring all data safely (even potentially corrupted parts) is required for potential review.
💡 Arpio’s quarantined recovery mitigates this concern. Restore safely in a clean room, without risk of re-infecting your workload.
Another common question was, “How do I know my application will actually work after recovery?” This is where we deliver tremendous value!
💡Arpio goes beyond data backups to enable complete environment recovery, with easy testing and validation so you can be sure your applications work as expected—before disaster strikes.
4. What Your AWS SA Wishes You Knew (About the Shared Responsibility Model)
Finally, our favorite question came up a few times: “Doesn’t AWS solve ransomware recovery for us already?” The answer is yes, kind of, but not completely. AWS is investing heavily in preventative measures to detect intrusions earlier, as well as tools like Vault Lock. Ultimately, though, the question of who’s on the hook for recovery still comes back to the AWS shared responsibility model.
The shared responsibility model says that while AWS secures the infrastructure, it’s up to you to control access, manage vulnerabilities, and build a reliable incident recovery plan.
Don’t Bet on Partial Coverage. Invest in Your Full Recovery.
The loudest message at re:Inforce 2025? You can’t talk about ransomware without talking about recovery. While prevention and detection are crucial, your disaster recovery plan is non-negotiable for your cyberresilience strategy.
Ready to see how Arpio can automate ransomware recovery? Get in touch and make a plan with our cloud resilience experts!
