Cohesity delivers FortKnox – a SaaS data isolation and recovery solution

Cohesity, a provider of next-generation data management, has announced the general availability of Cohesity FortKnox, a software as a service (SaaS) data isolation and recovery solution that complements the company’s Data Management as a Service portfolio of Amazon Web Services-based offerings (AWS).

FortKnox is a modern data isolation solution that can help organizations reduce the impact of cyber attacks such as ransomware.

“Cyber resilience is a top business priority for organizations,” said Brian Spanswick, Chief Information Security Officer, Cohesity. “Providing off-site data isolation through this SaaS offering is another way we are helping customers combat increasingly sophisticated attacks and accelerate recovery, while also enabling SecOps and compliance teams to sleep better at night.”

This announcement comes as customers seek a next-generation approach to data management and security. Traditionally, data was air gapped using magnetic tape as part of a 3-2-1 backup strategy – three copies of data on two different media, one of which was in an off-site environment. Although tape provides data security isolation, it does not allow for rapid recovery at scale, preventing teams from responding quickly to cyber security incidents such as ransomware, where large volumes of data may be compromised.

“With cyberattacks becoming more and more frequent and destructive, Cohesity FortKnox adds a new layer of protection to our most critical data,” said Olivier Pouvesle, CTO at BRGM.

“Organizations prioritize keeping data secure, but the increasing sophistication and frequency of cybersecurity threats is making data protection not only more critical but also more difficult,” said Adrian De Luca, Director of Solution Architecture, Global Partner Strategic Development at AWS. “With Cohesity FortKnox, customers are able to utilize the scalability, security, and accessibility of AWS with Cohesity’s next-gen data management for a solution that can help protect their data from ransomware and other cybersecurity threats.”

FortKnox powers a modern 3-2-1 cloud-era option that effectively balances organizations’ security and agility priorities. It’s a cloud solution that enables customers to connect, vault, and recover with ease. Vaulted data is kept secure and out of the hands of bad actors thanks to a virtual air gap created by physical separation as well as network and management isolation. In order to support business continuity objectives, this clean data can be recovered from the Cohesity-managed cloud vault and returned to the original source location – or alternate targets, such as the public cloud.

Cohesity FortKnox is designed to help customers:

• Keep data safe through:
  • Secure connection via a configurable data transfer window, outside of which the data vault is locked
  • Tamper resistance with immutability, object lock to prevent changes of vault policy, and quorum that requires a minimum of two or more people to approve critical actions
  • Operational isolation achieved with separate Cohesity-managed keys (not accessible to a rogue administrator) and separate workflows for read and write operations
  • Strict access controls including granular role-based access control, multi-factor authentication, and encryption both in-flight and at rest
  • AI-powered anomaly detection, through our Helios platform, helps identify potential indications of emerging ransomware attacks so administrators can take necessary actions to minimize proliferation and impact
• Connect, vault, and recover — no need to shuttle tapes around, construct a do-it-yourself (DIY) data vault, build out additional storage infrastructure, or devise bespoke recovery processes.
• In case of a ransomware attack, quickly identify a clean copy of data with confidence and rapidly recover safely to the desired location — on-premises or in the cloud.
• Move from a CapEx intensive to an OpEx ‘as a service’ model