CxO Decision Brief: Enhancing Cyber Resilience with Commvault Cloud Cleanroom Recovery

1. Solution Value

This GigaOm CxO Decision Brief commissioned by Commvault.

Let’s be clear: It’s not a matter of if or when your organization will suffer a cyber incident, but rather how bad it will be. The best you can do is mitigate the attack vectors, making it as hard as possible for attackers to gain traction in your environments and enhance recovery to minimize the damage when it happens. The problem with defense is that it always lags behind the innovation of the offense. To make organizations as resilient as possible, it is critical executives understand a new concept: cyber resiliency.

Unlike traditional backup and recovery, cyber resiliency is designed to be prepared for and to recover from an attack where data was lost or damaged and the locks protecting access and corruption were compromised. Backup recovery and disaster recovery are designed only to assist with data loss, leaving the compromised protections still damaged.

Cyber resiliency is chartered to be well prepared and capable in recovering data and applications to their clean, malware-free state in order to keep the business operating (or resilient). The recovery is performed to a new, clean, and secure location and environment (data, applications, hardware, firmware, BIOS, etc.) that enables a verifiable clean recovery. While the technical implementation of these solutions falls to technical leadership, organizational resilience–the ability to work–is everyone’s responsibility.

Commvault® Cloud Cleanroom™ Recovery offers organizations a resilient, secure, and isolated environment for clean cyber recovery–as well as the orchestration required for clean, reliable recovery at scale. This solution is particularly valuable in supporting smooth recovery subsequent to data breach or corruption from sophisticated cyber threats. The result: assured data availability and integrity that is crucial to maintaining business continuity and compliance.

By creating an on-demand, isolated recovery environment (IRE) in the cloud, Commvault demonstrates a forward-thinking approach to safeguarding sensitive data. It allows business-critical data to be quickly, reliably, and securely restored—to a clean location—so both the data and the environment into which it is being recovered are free from compromises.

2. Urgency and Risk

The acceleration, frequency, and sophistication of cyber threats increase daily, creating an urgent dilemma for key stakeholders across the security, infrastructure, and data domains. The consequences of inaction—from data breaches and operational paralysis to severe reputational damage and financial loss—are more immediate and far-reaching than ever. Industries rich in sensitive information, like healthcare, finance, and government, find themselves at a critical juncture where delaying cyber resilience measures could bring irreversible harm, up to and including a compromised ability to operate.

This underscores the collective imperative to adopt comprehensive solutions for cyber recovery. Cyber recovery establishes a third pillar of business continuity alongside the traditional pillars of operational recovery and disaster recovery, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Three Pillars of Business Continuity

Source: Commvault

Regulations, like the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), espouse and require recovery readiness and testing. Frameworks like the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST), Cybersecurity Framework (CSF), and NIS2 Directive (European Union) guide IT and security executives in building profiles and plans to implement.

For IT, data, and security leadership, integrating a solution similar to Commvault Cloud Cleanroom Recovery is critical for establishing a robust cyber readiness and recovery framework. This framework extends and complements operational and disaster recovery strategies to support the formation of a comprehensive business continuity plan.

Inaction or delayed implementation of a robust cyber readiness and recovery program undermines the organization’s ability to respond, can disrupt operations in whole or part, and may expose executives to personal liability.

Risk

Adopting Commvault Cloud Cleanroom Recovery introduces organizational shifts and requires a coordinated effort among IT, incident response, security, compliance, and data governance teams. Challenges include aligning multiple stakeholder priorities, integrating the solution into complex IT environments without disrupting existing operations, and upskilling teams to manage new recovery protocols effectively. Organizations must weigh the operational adjustments and learning curves against the stark reality of cyber vulnerabilities, opting for proactive engagement with solutions that improve their cyber resilience.

Deploying the solution incurs both initial and ongoing costs, including licensing fees, cloud infrastructure expenses, testing resources, and training activity. However, the potential risks of not adopting the solution far outweigh these costs. Failure to integrate the solution properly with existing systems may result in disruption if not managed properly. In highly regulated industries, where data recovery and integrity are subject to stringent compliance standards, secure and effective implementation of cyber recovery that includes recovery to clean IREs is crucial to minimize the cost, impact, and downtime associated with data breaches.

3. Benefits

Cyber resilience solutions advance the state-of-the-art in data protection and security. Among the top-line benefits of Commvault Cloud Cleanroom Recovery to the business:

• Enhanced data security: Offers robust protection mechanisms to help secure data from compromise.
• Compliance and governance: Aligns with regulatory standards, safeguarding against legal and financial penalties.
• Operational integrity: Minimizes downtime and accelerates recovery processes, critical for maintaining customer trust and market position. Provides effective and clean production failover capability.
• Testing and adaptability: Facilitates regular, auditable cyber recovery testing to deliver continuous improvement and readiness. Facilitates effective forensic analysis.
• Clean recovery: Supports clean recovery to clean locations provisioned on-demand, independent of account data, to eliminate the threat of compromised accounts and entry paths. This level of integrity is not possible via “Backup and Recovery” or “Disaster Recovery,” as neither provides cleaning of these vectors of compromise.
• Supports AI strategies: Leverages AI to facilitate capabilities such as data anomaly detection, data classification and management, prioritization and optimization of data recovery, and integration with other security enhancements.
• Strategic risk management: Empowers organizations to manage and mitigate cyber risks proactively, enhancing overall resilience.

4. Best Practices

To successfully adopt Commvault Cloud Cleanroom Recovery and navigate common pitfalls, consider the following best practices:

• Comprehensive training programs: Prioritize training and awareness to foster an organizational culture that values and understands the importance of cyber resilience. Develop and implement thorough training for IT, data, and security teams on the operational aspects of the cleanroom environment. This should include procedures for defining what applications and data warrant cleanroom recovery testing and readiness, establishing a cyber recovery test plan, and processes and responsibilities for initiating a cyber recovery.
• Regular testing and simulation exercises: Conduct regular, cross-functional recovery testing, drills, and simulation exercises to validate the strategy, provide organizational readiness, and test for the success and efficacy of recovery. GigaOm recommends running cyber recovery tests—where recoveries are performed from backup with cleanpoint validation—for all critical data and applications.
• Continuous monitoring and improvement: Establish continuous monitoring mechanisms to track the performance and effectiveness of the cyber recovery to the IRE. Use the insights gained from monitoring testing to make iterative improvements to the recovery strategy, so it remains effective against evolving cyber threats.
• Stakeholder engagement: Engage with all relevant stakeholders across the organization to help them understand their roles and responsibilities during cyber recovery. Integrate the cleanroom solution within a broader cybersecurity framework to support a unified approach to resilience.

These best practices can improve the adoption of Commvault Cloud Cleanroom Recovery and enhance the organization’s resilience against cyber threats.

5. Organizational Impact

Adopting Commvault’s solution signifies a transformative shift toward prioritizing data governance and cyber resilience. This requires not only technological integration but also a reevaluation of existing policies to emphasize collaboration and alignment across IT, security, compliance, and data governance business units. In short, cyber resilience must be embedded into ‌the organization’s DNA across all stakeholders.

People Impact

Successful deployment of Commvault Cloud Cleanroom Recovery catalyzes a shift in organizational dynamics, compelling IT, security, compliance, and data teams to evolve their collaboration and communication methodologies. This transformation is critical for embedding a culture of cyber resilience across the enterprise. Cybersecurity frameworks, such as those defined by NIST and NIS2, can assist organizations in building profiles and plans to address:

• Enhanced training and integration: A commitment to comprehensive training programs and the inclusion of specialists to bridge gaps in cyber recovery knowledge. This allows all teams to be equipped with the skills needed for the evolving cyber landscape.
• Cultural and operational shift: A move towards a more integrated and collaborative operational model is essential. This involves:
  • Rethinking roles and responsibilities to merge IT operations with security and data governance efforts seamlessly.
  • Instituting new communication protocols to foster a shared commitment to cyber resilience.
• Strategic team formation: The creation of cross-functional teams or dedicated roles aimed at cyber recovery and resilience, tasked with:
  • Establishing what constitutes a “clean” recovery state, led by security and with input from the IT and data teams.
  • Implementing recovery actions and maintaining the recovery environment readiness, providing readiness for both planned tests and unforeseen cyber incidents.

This integrated approach bolsters cyber resilience and enables a unified, strategic response to cyber threats. This alignment is crucial for navigating the complexities of cyber incident preparation and recovery and underlines the importance of a collaborative culture that spans IT, security, and data domains.

Investment Outlook

Investing in Commvault Cloud Cleanroom Recovery is a strategic move across the infrastructure, security, and data realms, reinforcing the organization’s collective cyber resilience. This is a broad-spectrum investment that underlines a commitment to mitigating risks and enhancing defense mechanisms against evolving cyber threats.

The expenditure involved in deploying Commvault’s solution should be measured against the full spectrum of potential cyber threat consequences, including operational and reputational risks and the implications for data governance and infrastructure integrity. It should also be measured against the cost and complexity of building and maintaining clean IREs for cyber recovery testing, forensics, and production continuity. For infrastructure, security, and data executives, this means making sure systems and data are protected and recoverable in an efficient, clean, and compliant manner, thereby maintaining business as usual, even in the wake of cyber disruptions.

Moreover, this investment transcends immediate cybersecurity needs, offering long-term value through:

• Enhanced cross-organizational efficiency: Streamlines recovery processes, reducing downtime and the associated costs of cyber incidents.
• Regulatory and compliance alignment: Facilitates adherence to evolving cyber resilience and data protection laws and standards such as Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), crucial for all organizational domains. See DORA Compliance with Commvault Cloud for more.
• Strengthened stakeholder confidence: By demonstrating a robust cyber resilience posture, the organization reassures customers, partners, and regulatory bodies of its commitment to protecting critical assets.

As such, investment in Commvault Cloud Cleanroom Recovery is strategic, laying a foundation for a comprehensive cyber resilience strategy that benefits the entire organization. It underscores a unified approach to cybersecurity, where the collaboration and alignment of the security, infrastructure, and data executives are critical for fostering a resilient, agile, and trustworthy organization in the digital age.

6. Solution Timeline

Depending on their specific environment and readiness, organizations can expect to implement Commvault Cloud Cleanroom Recovery within a few months. The phased approach—plan, test, deploy—provides minimal disruption and aligns with organizational priorities for cyber resilience.

Plan, Test, Deploy

Commvault Cloud Cleanroom Recovery Solution epitomizes the strategic evolution from traditional data protection and recovery strategies to a holistic cyber resilience framework. This shift is essential in today’s threat landscape, emphasizing data recovery as well as its protection and integrity throughout the cyber incident lifecycle.

Plan

• Initial assessment: Begin with a comprehensive evaluation of current data protection and recovery strategies to identify critical assets, data, applications, and associated vulnerabilities that should be continually tested for cyber recovery readiness .
• Integration planning: Develop a detailed plan for integrating Commvault Cloud Cleanroom Recovery into existing IT and security frameworks, providing alignment with organizational cyber resilience goals.

Test

• Simulation drills: Conduct simulated cyberattack scenarios to test the effectiveness of the cleanroom recovery process.
• Operational testing: Conduct actual operational testing before an incident occurs to find operational errors in the recovery process before the chaos of a cyber incident threatens an organization’s ability to operate.
• Process refinement: Analyze test outcomes to refine recovery protocols, and enhance the way the solution is used for testing and forensics use cases measures.

Deploy

• Implementation: Roll out Commvault Cloud Cleanroom Recovery for a seamless integration with minimal disruption to operations.
• Ongoing optimization: Establish a continuous improvement cycle, leveraging insights from testing and real-world operations to optimize the recovery strategy.

Future Considerations

The rapid evolution of cyber resilience challenges and solutions poses a stiff test to business management aligned on three-year planning cycles. Within a three-year window, organizations can expect serious pressure from technology advancements and regulatory activity:

• Technology advancements: Continuous innovation in cyber resilience technologies, with a particular emphasis on leveraging AI and machine learning. These advancements aim to enhance threat detection capabilities and automate recovery processes, offering more sophisticated defenses against complex cyber threats.
• Regulatory evolution: An expected shift in regulatory requirements, reflecting the dynamic nature of cyber risks and global emphasis on data protection. Organizations should prepare for tighter compliance demands, necessitating agile adaptation in cyber resilience strategies.

Commvault’s commitment to innovation suggests that its offerings will evolve to meet these changing demands, providing more integrated, intelligent, and user-friendly solutions for complex data environments. From Commvault’s perspective, the roadmap includes:

• AI and machine learning integration: Further embed advanced analytics to predict evolving threats with greater speed and accuracy and streamline recovery efforts.
• Enhanced automation: Focus on reducing human intervention in the recovery process to increase speed, reliability, and efficiency.

The cyber resilience sector is set to mature significantly, with a focus on predictive analytics and automated recovery solutions. Commvault’s commitment to innovation positions it as a key player. As threats grow in sophistication, Commvault’s roadmap indicates a proactive approach to equipping organizations with the tools needed not just to survive but to thrive in the face of cyber adversity. The emphasis on AI and automation reflects a broad industry trend towards smarter, more responsive cyber defense mechanisms. This, in turn, underscores the importance of continuous investment in cutting-edge technologies to maintain a robust cyber resilience posture.

7. Analyst’s Take

Cyber recovery stands as a crucial pillar in a comprehensive cyber resilience strategy, which goes beyond traditional recovery methods to address the unique challenges posed by cyber threats. Organizations and their solutions must respond to current threats while also adapting to future challenges. A strong cyber recovery solution facilitates rapid restoration and maintains operational integrity, making it indispensable for any robust cyber-resilience plan.

Commvault Cloud Cleanroom Recovery exemplifies this technology, aligning with current and anticipated cyber resilience needs. Its approach emphasizes cross-functional collaboration among security, data, and infrastructure teams, fostering a unified defense strategy. This collaboration on readiness, preparedness, and testing is key to deploying an effective cyber recovery process, providing better resilience so organizations can withstand and reliably recover from cyber incidents. Commvault’s commitment to innovation positions it as a pivotal partner in developing and maintaining a resilient cybersecurity ecosystem.

8. Report Methodology

This GigaOm CxO Decision Brief analyzes a specific technology and related solution to provide executive decision-makers with the information they need to drive successful IT strategies that align with the business. The report is focused on large impact zones that are often overlooked in technical research, yielding enhanced insight and mitigating risk. We work closely with vendors to identify the value and benefits of specific solutions, and to lay out best practices that enable organizations to drive a successful decision process.

Note 1: DORA Compliance with Commvault Cloud

9. About GigaOm

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GigaOm’s perspective is that of the unbiased enterprise practitioner. Through this perspective, GigaOm connects with engaged and loyal subscribers on a deep and meaningful level.

10. Copyright

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