NetApp wins 2025 SE Labs honour for enterprise data security

NetApp has been recognised with the 2025 SE Labs Award for Enterprise Data Protection for its role in advancing cybersecurity for enterprise storage systems.

The accolade was granted following an assessment by SE Labs, a firm known for public and private security testing, which evaluated the performance of NetApp ONTAP Autonomous Ransomware Protection with Artificial Intelligence (ARP/AI). According to NetApp, the solution demonstrated a 99 percent detection rate for advanced full-file encryption ransomware attacks with zero false positives during testing, suggesting a reduction in unnecessary alerts within business environments.

SE Labs Awards, now in their seventh year, honour vendors whose products display consistent and high-level performance in cyber defence. Evaluation is based on the results of ongoing public testing, private assessments, and input from SE Labs' corporate clients. These results are used to set benchmarks for cybersecurity within the industry.

"Great security doesn't just happen—it's built, tested and proven," says Simon Edwards, Founder and CEO of SE Labs. "Behind every high performing security product is a team committed to excellence. We believe that we should celebrate the technologies and teams pushing the boundaries in protection and resilience against cyberattacks. The standard of competition for the top place in each category has been very high this year and all of our winners are to be congratulated."

NetApp's ARP/AI is designed to provide real-time, artificial intelligence-driven detection of ransomware activity within primary storage systems, a feature that the company says is unique among storage providers for file workloads. The company stated this security function has become increasingly relevant amid rising concerns over ransomware incidents impacting businesses globally.

Gagan Gulati, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Data Services at NetApp, said, "Winning the 2025 SE Labs Award for Enterprise Data Protection highlights NetApp's commitment to providing the most secure storage on the planet. With ARP/AI, NetApp is the first and only storage vendor with built-in, real-time AI-powered ransomware detection in primary storage for file workloads. Keeping data and their businesses safe is a top concern for companies everywhere, with discussions about the disruption of ransomware attacks rising all the way to the boardroom. To combat the relentless threat of targeted, automated and destructive cyberattacks, companies need an intelligent data infrastructure with built-in cyber resilience."

Since the introduction of ARP/AI, NetApp has continued to develop its cyber resiliency offerings, including enhancements for protecting critical workloads in native cloud environments. The company has also announced planned updates to bring ARP/AI functionality to block storage workloads at a future date.

Statements from NetApp indicate that future capabilities and features remain subject to change and should not be considered definitive for purchasing or contracting decisions.

NetApp acknowledges that no detection or prevention tool can absolutely guarantee immunity from ransomware attacks. The company asserts, however, that its technology serves as a supplemental defence layer and that internal research has shown a high detection rate in specific types of file encryption ransomware incidents.