Backup vs disaster recovery vs cyber recovery: what is the difference?

Three jobs, not three words for one thing

The terms get used interchangeably, which is how organizations end up surprised. They are distinct disciplines that answer distinct questions:

• Backup makes and retains copies of data and systems. The question it answers is "did the copy get made?"
• Disaster recovery restores service after a disruption like a fire, flood, hardware failure or outage. It focuses on recovery time and recovery point, failover and an alternate site. The question it answers is "can we run somewhere else?"
• Cyber recovery restores the business cleanly after an attack. It adds clean-point selection, an isolated environment, identity-first sequencing and validation. The question it answers is "can we come back clean?"

The one assumption that separates them

Disaster recovery trusts the data. It assumes the recovery point is good and the problem is availability, so it optimizes for speed and failover. Cyber recovery does not trust the data. It assumes the environment and recent copies may be compromised, so it adds the steps that prove a point is clean before restoring it. That single difference in assumption changes the entire process.

Why disaster recovery plans fail against ransomware

• Replication faithfully copies the encryption and the malware to your standby, so failover just fails over to the same attack.
• A hot standby is part of the same trusted environment, which means it is often compromised too.
• Recovery-time math assumes a clean source, so it is meaningless once the source is suspect.
• There is no clean-point selection and no isolated validation, the exact steps an attack makes necessary.

How they fit together

This is not a competition. Backup is the foundation that makes any recovery possible. Disaster recovery handles the loss of a site or infrastructure. Cyber recovery handles an adversary who is actively trying to stop you from recovering. A mature program runs all three, because a flood and a ransomware crew are different problems and only one of them is trying to defeat your recovery on purpose.

How KELYN makes this operational

KELYN builds on Commvault to cover all three: reliable immutable backups as the foundation, and cyber recovery layered on top with clean-point selection, isolated recovery and identity-first sequencing. The result is a recovery that holds up whether the cause is a burst pipe or a breach.

Sources

• Commvault Cyber Recovery Readiness research with GigaOm ↗