Home Learn Data Clean Room What is a Data Clean Room? Try now Data Clean Room Overview Definition Use Cases Benefits Related Terms Resources Overview Safeguard Business Operations, Data Privacy, Data Protection, and Integrity through Cleanroom Recovery Cleanroom recovery provides security teams with an isolated environment to perform investigations, find gaps in defenses, and safely recover data without risk of contamination. As cyber threats grow ever more pervasive and sophisticated, enterprise organizations must fully equip their security teams with a robust approach to cyber resilience, which should always include a comprehensive cleanroom recovery strategy. Cleanroom recovery provides a safe and isolated environment in which organizations can test their cyber recovery plans without disrupting production systems. The isolated environment also serves as a safe and sterile area for security investigations to determine the cause of attacks or find gaps in defenses to prevent future attacks. Cleanrooms can provide forensic analysis of known infected systems and offer insights into the root cause of an attack, a critical component to preventing future security incidents. Organizations must continuously test their recovery approach to enable a frictionless, rapid return to business operations. Cleanroom recovery should be a primary pillar in every organization’s cyber resilience strategy. definition Cleanroom Recovery Defined Cleanroom recovery is a cloud-based step beyond traditional data recovery approaches because it designates a separate, controlled space to determine the cause of security issues, isolate the problem in a segregated area, and prevent data from being compromised. Cleanroom recovery is a multi-step process to prevent data contamination or loss following a breach. The process helps organizations more quickly recover from cyberattacks because there is a predefined set of processes. It also can be used to investigate malware code by restoring the infected systems in the isolated environment, providing critical analysis to understand how to prevent future attacks. Cleanrooms are useful in several scenarios, from validating backup image recovery to testing the recovery process and conducting forensic analysis. A cleanroom is a controlled environment, a safe space away from any infected hardware or software. The cleanroom is a standalone environment separate from the production network that prevents contamination that could further damage storage devices or compromise the integrity of recovered data. The cleanroom is a critical component in the process to restore and recover data in a protected environment. The cleanroom recovery process involves multiple steps, including the following: Identification and isolation: Identifying the data breach and isolating the impacted systems to prevent further spreading the breach and avoid contaminating the cleanroom. Secure transfer: Transferring the compromised data using encrypted channels and protocols to uphold the confidentiality and integrity of the data during the transfer process. Analysis and assessment: Analyzing the compromised data and identifying the compromised systems, data types, and vulnerabilities that led to the breach helps determine the extent of the breach. Data recovery: Restoring clean or unaffected copies in the cleanroom environment to eliminate any malware or malicious code that might have been present. Data validation and integrity checks: Performing validation and integrity checks upholds accuracy and completeness, verifies data consistency, and compares against known good backups. Security measures: Implementing measures prevent re-infection and protect the recovered data and includes patching vulnerabilities, creating stronger access controls, and deploying advanced threat detection systems. Testing and verification: Testing the systems and data for functionality and reliability, including performance and data integrity tests. Transition to production: Transitioning the recovered data and systems should be planned and executed to minimize any potential risks or disruptions. use cases Cleanroom Recovery Use Cases Organizations can apply cleanroom recovery in several scenarios to enable continuous business in the face of cyberattacks. Testing Cyber Recovery Cleanroom recovery simplifies and streamlines the process of testing cyber recovery plans in hybrid environments. Cleanroom recovery allows organizations to recover workloads from multiple clouds, on-premises hypervisors, and physical servers to a common environment within the cleanroom. This eliminates the need to perform testing within each environment separately, saving time and resources. Forensic Analysis of Known Infected Systems In addition to cyber recovery testing, cleanroom recovery provides a safe environment for conducting forensic analysis of known infected systems. This analysis can help organizations identify the root cause of an attack, understand how the attackers gained access to their systems, and take steps to prevent future incidents. Production Failover in the Event of a Breach Cleanroom recovery can serve as a production failover solution in the event of a breach. This means that if an organization’s production systems are disrupted by a cyberattack, they can quickly and easily recover their workloads to a clean environment within the cleanroom. This can help organizations minimize downtime and get their business back up and running quickly. Disaster Recovery Cleanroom recovery is indispensable when storage devices sustain physical damage due to water, fire, impact, or manufacturing defects. The controlled cleanroom environment enables the recovery process to proceed without the risk of additional harm to the hardware. Contaminant Sensitivity Devices exposed to contaminants such as dust, dirt, or microscopic particles necessitate cleanroom recovery. This is particularly critical in industrial settings, laboratories, or cleanroom manufacturing facilities where even the slightest contamination can compromise data integrity. Advanced-Data Recovery In instances where standard data recovery methods falter, cleanroom recovery offers a specialized and advanced approach. This proves beneficial for critical data or situations warranting the allocation of additional resources to retrieve valuable information. Benefits Benefits of Cleanroom Recovery Cleanroom recovery provides a safe and isolated environment for testing cyber recovery plans, conducting forensic analysis, and enabling continuous business if a breach does occur. Cleanroom recovery can help organizations improve their cyber resilience by providing benefits such as: Reduced risk of re-infection: Cleanroom recovery provides a safe and isolated environment where workloads can be recovered without the risk of re-infection. Enhanced security capabilities: Cleanroom recovery can be used to identify and address security vulnerabilities in cyber recovery plans. Simplified failover: Cleanroom recovery can serve as a production failover solution in the event of a breach, allowing production operation recovery to be conducted within a sanitized environment. Resilience to cyber threats: Cleanroom recovery can help organizations become more resilient in the face of cyberattack and bad actors. Cleanroom recovery provides organizations with a powerful tool for comprehensive testing, forensic analysis, and production failover. By adopting cleanroom recovery, organizations can confidently test their cyber recovery plans, identify and remediate vulnerabilities, and maintain continuous business in the face of cyberattacks. Related Terms What is Cleanroom Recovery? Cleanroom Recovery is a specialized data recovery process that ensures the secure and reliable retrieval of critical information from damaged storage devices in environments where data contamination poses a significant risk. Learn more What is Disaster Recovery? Disaster recovery (DR) is the process of restoring an organization’s IT infrastructure and operations after a major disruption or disaster. Learn more What is Ransomware Protection? Ransomware protection is the process of preventing the occurrence of a ransomware event, and/or mitigating the risk of a successful attack. Learn more related resources Explore related resources View all resources Solution Brief Cleanroom Recovery Commvault® Cleanroom™ Recovery is the ultimate safe haven in a chaotic, hybrid world. Read more On-demand Webinar Business Continuity with Cleanroom Recovery Discover Cleanroom Recovery, which enables continuous testing and rapid resilience to combat cyber threats within hybrid enterprises. Watch now ESG Technical Review Bolster Cyber Readiness with Commvault Cloud Cleanroom Recovery Explore the groundbreaking solution of Commvault Cloud Cleanroom Recovery and unlock fortified cyber resilience for your organization. Read more