A cyberattack, terrorist attack or a natural disaster impacting data centers can completely cripple your IT operations if you're not prepared for this scenario. Downtime of mission critical and revenue generating applications translates to lost revenue & customers, damaged reputation, and frustrated employees. So, how can you ensure your business continues to operate smoothly even in the face of unforeseen disruptions?
Enter the cyber vault, a secure and reliable data storage solution designed specifically for disaster recovery. This blog will explore how cyber vaults can minimize downtime and keep your business running during its most critical moments.
Background: Ransomware
Datacenters, housing an organization's critical data and applications, are prime targets for ransomware attacks. A ransomware infection typically spreads within a datacenter environment in 3 steps:
1. Initial Breach via Phishing, unpatched vulnerabilities,unsecured ports, poor access control or insider threats.
2. Lateral Movement and Privilege Escalation spreading across network, applications, active directory, domain controllers and privilege escalation leading to gaining administrative access to systems
3. Data Encryption and Disruption, datacenter inaccessible, firewalls compromised followed up by demand for ransom for decryption key
CyberVault, The Saviour
A cyber vault is an air-gapped security storage solution designed to restore and recover systems after an attack. It consists of 3 components: Landing Zone, Storage and Restoration Zone.
Landing Zone (Hosted in a Private Cloud):
A cyberattack, terrorist attack or a natural disaster impacting data centers can completely cripple your IT operations if you're not prepared for this scenario. Downtime of mission critical and revenue generating applications translates to lost revenue & customers, damaged reputation, and frustrated employees. So, how can you ensure your business continues to operate smoothly even in the face of unforeseen disruptions?
Enter the cyber vault, a secure and reliable data storage solution designed specifically for disaster recovery. This blog will explore how cyber vaults can minimize downtime and keep your business running during its most critical moments.
Background: Ransomware
Datacenters, housing an organization's critical data and applications, are prime targets for ransomware attacks. A ransomware infection typically spreads within a datacenter environment in 3 steps:
1. Initial Breach via Phishing, unpatched vulnerabilities,unsecured ports, poor access control or insider threats.
2. Lateral Movement and Privilege Escalation spreading across network, applications, active directory, domain controllers and privilege escalation leading to gaining administrative access to systems
3. Data Encryption and Disruption, datacenter inaccessible, firewalls compromised followed up by demand for ransom for decryption key
CyberVault, The Saviour
A cyber vault is an air-gapped security storage solution designed to restore and recover systems after an attack. It consists of 3 components: Landing Zone, Storage and Restoration Zone.
Landing Zone (Hosted in a Private Cloud):
- Function: Temporary staging area for production backups. it has its own AD, Network segmentation and data verification and encryption service.
- Processes:
- Data transfer from production (tools like Zerto, AWS backups).
- Malware scans with tools like Crowdstrike Falcon
- Data staging for specific retention periods
- Active Directory backups using built-in tools or Veeam Agent for Microsoft Active Directory.
- Kubernetes cluster state backups
- Docker registry backups with Docker save
- Network device configuration backups
- Validated data is transferred to the long term storage zone using SFTP with strong encryption.
Storage Zone (Air-Gapped or Highly Secure Network Segment):
- Function: Long-term secure storage for critical data.
- Air-gapped network: Ideally, physically isolated from other zones.
- Immutable Storage: WORM storage
- Strong Encryption: Data at rest remains encrypted
- Physical Security: Access control systems
- Processes:
- Data transfer from the landing zone with encryption.
- Data organization and cataloging for efficient retrieval
- WORM (Write once Read many) storage ensures data immutability.
Restoration Zone (Hosted in a Private Cloud):
- Function: Staging area for data recovery after a security incident or outage.
- Processes:
- Data retrieval from the storage zone with decryption (managed by the storage management tool).
- Data integrity checks before integration (using hashing tools).
- Malware, Ransomware, and Vulnerability Scanning: Integrate antivirus/anti-malware tools (e.g., Trend Micro OfficeScan) and vulnerability scanners to identify potential threats and weaknesses.
- Virtual Server Image Restoration: Utilize hypervisor functionalities or backup solutions to restore entire VM environments.
- System and Configuration Restoration: Restore backed-up configurations for Active Directory, critical applications, Kubernetes/Docker, and network devices.
- Restored data is used to bring affected systems back online
Monitoring and Auditing:
- SIEM (Security Information and Event Management): Splunk monitors all zones for suspicious activity, collecting logs from firewalls, access control systems, security scanners, backup tools, and other relevant sources.
Benefits of Cybervault
Investing in Business Continuity
A cyber vault is a crucial investment for any business that relies on its data. Don't wait for a disaster to strike – take action today and safeguard your business with the power of cyber vaults
