What is cyber recovery?

Cyber recovery solutions use a backup environment, software and hardware components that store copies of critical data to restore critical systems after a cyberattack.

Unlike the broader disciplines of cybersecurity and disaster recovery, cyber recovery focuses on mitigating targeted cyberattacks by bad actors. Bad actors (also known as threat actors) are groups or individuals who seek to harm digital devices and systems. Organizations that invest in modern cyber recovery solutions expect to make a full and rapid recovery after such an attack

With cyberattacks increasing in frequency and sophistication, enterprises are taking a more proactive approach than they have in the past. While traditional defenses like firewalls and real-time threat detection and response are still important, solutions that deal with newer threats like ransomware attacks and advanced malware are becoming popular.

New, data-rich technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), generative AI (gen AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) have made the enterprise threat landscape more challenging because of the amount of data they require. Cyber recovery solutions play a vital role in keeping data safe and restoring business continuity after a cyber incident.

Modern cyber recovery is typically broken down into five steps:

1. Replication
2. Validation
3. Orchestration
4. Remediation
5. Integration

Here’s a closer look at each step.

The first step in establishing a successful cyber recovery workflow is to create secure, immutable copies of valuable data—a process known as replication.

To create backup data, organizations rely on proven replication technologies like change data capture (CDC) that copy data and track and implement any subsequent changes.

Backing up critical data is the core of the recovery process. Once copied to an isolated environment, backup data should be stored on air-gapped devices—storage or computing systems that have been physically disconnected from the internet.

To ensure data integrity, organizations must confirm the backups they’ve made can be successfully used to restore mission-critical systems and business operations—a process known as validation.

Today, most validation techniques use machine learning (ML), a type of AI that can be trained to recognize unauthorized changes to data. ML, along with advanced automation tools, reduces the likelihood of human error compromising data during backup. 

The third step in cyber recovery is the orchestration of a wide range of complex tasks to accelerate the recovery process after a cyberattack.

These tasks include the spinning up of workflows in secure environments, the restoration of mission-critical applications and the blocking of malicious IP addresses before malware can spread further through a system.

Like validation, modern orchestration relies heavily on automation to speed up various tasks and minimize the likelihood of human error impacting the recovery process.

Remediation is the process of restoring critical data and workloads to production environments after an attack.

Before deploying a cyber recovery solution or implementing a strategy, organizations typically assess their recovery capabilities and identify any mission-critical systems for prioritized, rapid recovery.

Mission-critical systems are systems that are essential to restoring business operations. During the remediation phase, it’s common for mission-critical systems to receive recovery resources before other, non-essential services.

Finally, after system functionality has been restored, all the various components need to be reintegrated with existing business processes and workflows—a process known as integration.

During integration, various security solutions and data sources that might have gone offline during an attack are reconnected. An effective cyber recovery strategy should closely align with an organization’s overall incident response planning so the whole business can make a full and efficient recovery.

With a strong approach to cyber recovery, modern enterprises can better navigate today’s rapidly evolving threat landscape and make themselves more resilient to a wide range of cyberthreats. Here are some of the top benefits of cyber recovery.

• Increased resilience

• Less downtime

• Stronger risk mitigation and compliance

• Enhanced monitoring

• Greater flexibility

Cyber recovery plays a vital role in the core business operations of many of the world’s most successful organizations. Modern cyber recovery solutions secure IT environments and protect mission-critical systems from a wide range of cyberthreats. Here are the top use-cases for cyber recovery at the enterprise level.

Ransomware attacks are increasing in scope and complexity worldwide. According to a recent report from the FBI, the number of ransomware complaints rose by 11% last year, with adjusted losses of over USD 12 million.¹

Comprehensive cyber recovery strategies help organizations recover from ransomware attacks by following network-sharing protocols, layered processes that dictate how backup data is restored to systems and networks.

Modern cyber recovery helps ensure the integrity of backup data. They do that by isolating systems that cyberattacks have impacted and by implementing a layered approach to prevent reinfection.

Adopting a cyber recovery solution helps organizations increase their ability to withstand complex cyberattacks and recover data and systems quickly afterward. Cyber recovery solutions rely on advanced techniques like virtual sandboxes, air-gapped data backup, point-in-time recovery and immutable storage.

Resilient data strategies are critical in reducing downtime—one of the most harmful aspects of a cyberattack because of its overall financial impact. According to a recent report, a single hour of downtime costs an organization USD 300,000, on average.²

Isolated recovery is an aspect of cyber recovery that uses separate, secure and “isolated” environments to restore data after an attack. These isolated environments are a critical part of cyber recovery, ensuring systems and processes aren’t infected with malware or ransomware when they’re restored.

Advanced cyber recovery approaches restore critical data from “clean” backups—backups that have been kept in isolation from all networks. Some approaches even include automated scanning capabilities that can detect malware and ransomware threats in data copies that have been kept in immutable storage.

With the rise of hybrid cloud environments (that is, IT environments that combine public, private and on-premises IT infrastructure) cyber recovery solutions are more important. These solutions become a critical tool for restoring data and system integrity in the cloud after an attack.

Modern cyber recovery solutions are tailored to meet the demands of hybrid cloud with tools that can span multiple platforms and types of recovery workflows.

Hybrid cyber recovery solutions combine the speed and isolation capabilities of on-premises infrastructure with the scalability and flexibility of virtual cloud resources that rely on SaaS architectures and tools.

New technologies are making cyberattacks more difficult for even the most sophisticated organizations to detect and repel. As a result, more enterprises are turning to a proactive cybersecurity approach, a type of cybersecurity that uses planning, rehearsing and adapting to improve security.

Proactive cyber recovery allows enterprises to test how their current plans and solutions fare against a wide range of threats. For example, organizations that invest in regular vulnerability scans can address security weaknesses before an attack and be far more prepared when they face a real one. Examples of proactive cybersecurity include penetration testing, implementation of multi-factor authentication (MFA) protocols and installing frequent, up-to-date software patches.

Modern cyber recovery solutions face a rising number of new ways bad actors can reach inside organizations and steal their data. While even the most advanced cyber recovery and security solutions can’t eliminate the risk of cyberthreats, they can make a full recovery more likely. Moreover, they also help reduce the chances of a harmful data breach.

Unfortunately, larger attack surfaces—the measurement of an organization’s vulnerabilities to a cyberattack—appear to be the cost of using data-rich technologies like gen AI and IoT. But AI and ML capabilities are increasing automation in cyber recovery, shortening response times and making the recovery process more efficient. Minimizing downtime and preventing data loss is, most likely, going to continue to be top priorities for organizations, regardless of how threats evolve.

Today, three important trends shape the future of cyber recovery: The increased use of AI, deeper integration of immutable storage and the increasing adoption of automation and orchestration in cybersecurity.

• Increased use of AI: AI and ML are being tested for their effectiveness in all aspects of cyber recovery. Even so, primarily they are being used to automate and accelerate threat detection and response, a critical capability for facing future threats.

• Deeper integration of immutable storage: Immutable storage is being more deeply integrated into cyber recovery by using WORM (write once, read many) technology. WORM data storage allows backup data to be written onto a device once and not be erased or modified, an essential capability for recovering from ransomware attacks.

• Increased use of security orchestration tools: Security orchestration, also known as Security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR), is a term used to describe software platforms. These platforms allow security teams to better coordinate and automate their cybersecurity responses, further reducing the likelihood of human error.