How Cohesity FortKnox Helps Your Cyber Resiliency
Cyber resiliency comes down to one thing: how well you can achieve your organization’s goals despite the risks of cyber security, like malware attacks or hacking attempts. It might seem like it’s easy to achieve this kind of resiliency to some, but keep the data in mind. There are reportedly as many as 2,200 cyber attacks per day, or one every 39 seconds. An average data breach also costs almost nine and a half million dollars, with cybercrime expected to cost organizations some $8 trillion by the end of 2023.
Those organizations that know cyber resiliency is important still face another challenge: how to improve it. Is it as simple as investing more money in expensive IT staffing and infrastructure—and even then, hoping for the best? Instead, many companies opt for SaaS platforms that offer cyber resiliency services like assessments, cloud data storage, and creating an additional layer of protection against ransomware, hacking attempts, and malware attacks.
One such solution is Cohesity’s FortKnox. The name alone suggests a new “vault” for sensitive data, such as healthcare data, that may be great for organizations that need to increase cyber resiliency in a hurry. But how can SaaS like this provide that resiliency with minimal interruption to an organization’s day-to-day activities? Let’s take a look.
What is a SaaS “Cyber Vaulting” Solution?
The term “cyber vaulting” refers to storing information separately, almost like a bank using a vault to protect its money. Except in this case, the valuable storage is made entirely out of data. Medical organizations can be especially attractive targets for cyber hackers because of the sensitive nature of the information being stored. A healthcare organization that uses SaaS cyber vaulting can keep its essential data protected—and since it’s through SaaS, it’s much easier to set up than building one’s own cyber vaulting solution.
FortKnox advertises itself as a “SaaS data isolation and recovery solution that improves cyber resiliency.” In other words, the term Fort Knox is appropriate. Think of it as a way to silo your most essential data quickly—while utilizing the advanced security features of FortKnox.
FortKnox Features and Cybersecurity Solutions
FortKnox’s goal is to provide an additional layer of protection to your data—but not to add another layer of complication. That can be music to the ears of organizations who already have plenty of complicated infrastructure in place and simply need a new data silo to add cyber resiliency to their operations.
FortKnox accomplishes this in a few ways:
- “Virtual air gap”: We’ve all heard it, we all know it but how do you provide this easily? FortKnox provides a vaulted data copy that is isolated from the customer environment with physical, network and management seclusion. This is locked against writing into/read access.
- Cybersecurity beyond “zero trust.” Zero trust is becoming the de-facto standard for baseline security. FortKnox builds upon the principles of least privilege and segregation of duties to implement a holistic approach to data protection.
- Immutable data copies FortKnox stores an immutable copy of data in a Cohesity-managed cloud vault via a virtual air gap. Not only that but this data is protected with additional safeguards such as role-based access (RBAC), encryption, multi-factor authentication (MFA), a WORM lock policy and a quorum rule that requires at least two employees to approve any critical actions
- Ransomware Protection Cohesity FortKnox utilizes machine learning to help detect anomalies and report any issues before they can affect your business.
- Boosting existing security controls FortKnox can integrate with SIEM, SOAR, and KMS to help you utilize and extend existing security investments.
- Early threat detection. FortKnox uses machine learning early threat detection to keep its algorithms attuned to what may be going on in the world of hackers. This helps it detect any anomalous log-in attempts and increases response time in the event of a hacking attempt.
- Improved Business Continuity
The result for an organization looking for data vaulting SaaS solutions: enhanced capabilities and cyber resiliency with a more straightforward approach to investing in SaaS.
Physical Solutions for an Online Problem: FortKnox Data Vault
One of the key features of Cohesity is that it allows companies to package hard data, seal it in magnetic tape, and send it off to a data vault. This “air gap” approach has a number of effects. For starters, it means that backup data is available to organizations even if there’s a devastating cyber attack that otherwise requires re-sets and new equipment. Second, it provides an off-site data protection option that serves in a Cohesity-managed cloud vault. This helps create the “virtual air gap” that’s convenient to manage, but still provides the kind of cybersecurity organizations need to remain that cyber resiliency.
In fact, FortKnox’s solution provides an alternative to the magnetic tape option, which means it can serve as an additional backup in the case of physical damage from non-cybersecurity-related issues. Natural disasters or storm-caused power loss come to mind. And if the Cohesity backup cluster is somehow accidentally deleted, FortKnox would provide supplemental backup storage.
With both physical and online solutions possible for both physical and online challenges, organizations may find that their resiliency goes up. If there’s a data breach, the organization has options via its remotely-stored data vault. If there’s physical damage, the same is true. It all adds up to an effective system that keeps organizations awash in the data they need—but without exposing them to undue risk.
Taking on the Challenges of Modern Cyber Attacks
Cyber resilience is a top corporate priority for organizations with threats increasing rapidly. Providing off-site data protection via a connect, vault and recover SaaS solution helps organizations combat even the most advanced attacks. Additionally, accelerated recovery is made easier via physical air-gapped separation. Overall, Cohesity FortKnox enables security and compliance teams alike to sleep better at night. Interested in getting started with FortKnox? Contact Comport for more information on FortKnox.
