For enhanced ransomware resiliency, it is vital to secure your backup data on immutable storage and maintain an isolated copy of your backup data—often referred to as an air-gapped copy. An Isolated Recovery Environment (IRE) enables air-gapped backup copies by disabling network connectivity to a secure copy of your critical data, providing administrators a clean set of files on demand to neutralize the impact of a ransomware attack.
The NetBackup Flex IRE solution:
- Stores an isolated copy of the data ensuring it stays unaltered until it’s no longer needed.
- Ensures data is immutable and indelible – minimizing threats from ransomware and rogue users.
- Detects ransomware infections within the protected data to prevent re-infection when restoring data.
- Enables recovery operations at scale so business services can meet service level objectives.
- Enables predictable recovery processes that can be rehearsed to on-premises or cloud infrastructure.
Unlike traditional IRE solutions, the NetBackup Flex IRE solution offers a unified, scalable solution with immutability and indelibility. In addition, the Veritas IRE is based on the Flex appliances' container-based multi-domain WORM storage with hardening OS and a zero-trust architecture without additional license cost. NetBackup Anomaly and Malware Detection provide another line of defense against malware propagating in the environment. NetBackup IRE offers a simple means to determine Service Lifecycle Policy (SLP) windows and configure an Air-Gapped schedule for maximum protection with a simple, streamlined approach.
Veritas’ IRE solution provides a high-performance NetBackup solution with zero-trust security without any extra license cost.
NetBackup Flex IRE Architecture
The Veritas IRE solution focuses on three pillars: Protect, Detect, and Recover.
Protection
One copy of the backup images is stored on the primary site, and a second is replicated to a WORM storage container on a Flex Appliance. The IRE provides another line of defense against malware propagating in the environment by isolating the second copy of the backup in a network isolated immutable storage. It works by disabling this WORM storage container’s network access to the production network outside the replication window. The Flex Appliance also includes multiple layers of security built-in, including a hardened OS, zero trust architecture, immutable and indelible storage, and infrastructure to protect your backup data further.
Detection
The Veritas IRE solution includes anomaly detection and malware scanning. The AI-driven anomaly detection can identify abnormalities in backup behaviors and can automatically initiate malware scanning. The malware scanning can detect infected files within backup images.
Recovery
The IRE provides a secure copy of the critical backup data, providing administrators with a clean set of files on demand for recovery. NBU detects impacted images, alerts the backup administrator, and allows viewing the impacted files list, expiring all copies. The last-known-good image will be visible in the recovery workflow, and selecting an impacted image will present several warnings to the user. Instant Access technology is available from the IRE site to ensure quick recovery, allowing compute or application workloads to be launched directly from IRE backup storage.
NetBackup’s anomaly detection and malware scanning with Flex Appliances’ multiple layers of security in an air-gapped configuration provides the easiest and most secure way to protect your important backup data. Recover your applications quickly with Universal Share and have confidence that you are recovering from a known clean copy with the clean restore option.
