In the face of increasingly sophisticated cyber threats, organizations must adopt more advanced tools to ensure the security of their backup environments. Druva, a leader in SaaS-based data protection, has introduced cutting-edge threat hunting capabilities and AI-powered tools like Dru Investigate to combat modern-day cyberattacks. These solutions empower organizations to proactively detect, investigate, and respond to data threats, particularly in backup environments, which are often the last line of defense against ransomware and other malware.
In our recent Data Security & AI Virtual Summit, Druva CEO Jaspreet Singh discussed how these enhancements enable customers to take the offensive vs. potential attackers, leveraging the power of their backup data to quickly respond to potential threats. Watch his keynote from the event here, and read further to get the details below.
Playing Defense vs. Malware
Organizations face four primary types of data breaches: application or operational failures, user-driven exploits, malware attacks, and process lapses such as privacy violations. Malware-related breaches are quickly evolving and have become particularly dangerous due to the new and unpredictable tactics of cybercriminals. Once malware infiltrates a system it can remain undetected for months or even years as attackers move laterally through an organization, gathering sensitive data and compromising backups.
Malware attacks typically progress through several stages, beginning with reconnaissance and weaponization, followed by exploiting vulnerabilities, lateral movement, and finally, breaching data. These stages emphasize the importance of not only perimeter security but also the need for robust backup protection. Traditional security measures may not be sufficient to prevent malware from infiltrating systems and compromising backups, and Druva's threat hunting capabilities address this gap by offering powerful tools to identify malware indicators of compromise (IoCs), investigate the scope of an attack, and ensure that clean backup data is available for recovery.
Exploring Druva’s Threat Hunting Capabilities
Druva's threat hunting feature, particularly tailored for VMware backups, is designed to proactively search for IoCs and prevent malware from reinfecting systems during recovery. This feature allows IT and security teams to run global searches across all data and applications to identify potential threats. For instance, a security team can search for specific file hashes, file types, or other artifacts that indicate the presence of malware.
Two key use cases for threat hunting are "peacetime" and "wartime" scenarios — read this blog to learn more about peace- and wartime threat hunting. During peacetime, organizations can run threat hunts based on intelligence from security advisories to validate that their backups are free of known vulnerabilities. In wartime scenarios, threat hunts help teams assess the damage from an active attack, identify infected resources, and determine the best recovery points. Druva's ability to isolate infected snapshots ensures that organizations can recover clean data without the risk of reinfection. Learn more about Druva’s Accelerated Ransomware Recovery capabilities here.
Druva’s threat hunting solution is not only limited to VMware but is also rapidly expanding to cover other workloads, including cloud environments like Amazon EC2 and Azure. This versatility ensures that no matter the infrastructure, organizations can safeguard their data.
Accelerating Investigations with Dru Investigate
To complement threat hunting, Druva has introduced Dru Investigate, the latest advancement to our Dru AI portfolio that accelerates the process of investigating and responding to data security threats within backup environments. Traditional threat investigation tools often overwhelm security teams with alerts, making it difficult to sift through data and pinpoint genuine threats. Dru Investigate simplifies this process by leveraging AI to allow natural language queries, enabling even non-technical users to search for suspicious activity and analyze backups for IoCs.
With Dru Investigate, IT and security teams can collaborate more effectively. For example, a security team can use the tool to identify unusual admin behavior, such as the creation of suspicious API keys or data extraction, while IT teams can focus on gathering relevant backup data for further analysis. By integrating with the MITRE ATT&CK™ framework, Dru Investigate provides valuable context to detected threats, helping teams understand the tactics used by attackers and streamline their response.
Dru Investigate also addresses compliance and governance challenges by enabling teams to query backup data for regulatory violations or privacy issues using plain language prompts. As a fully managed, cloud-native tool, Dru Investigate requires no additional hardware or software, and all necessary compute resources are covered by Druva. This makes the tool accessible and cost-effective for organizations of any size.
A Holistic Approach to Data Security
Druva’s innovations in threat hunting and AI-powered investigation represent a significant leap forward in how organizations manage and protect their data. As cyber threats continue to evolve, Druva ensures that backup environments are not merely a passive storehouse of data but an active defense against malware. By combining the power of AI with comprehensive data indexing and threat hunting capabilities, Druva empowers organizations to not only recover from attacks but also to proactively hunt for and neutralize threats before they cause irreparable damage.
In summary, Druva’s integrated approach to data security offers:
Proactive Threat Detection: Through advanced threat hunting capabilities, organizations can detect and respond to malware IoCs, ensuring that backups remain clean and ready for recovery.
Streamlined Investigations: Dru Investigate uses AI to simplify the threat investigation process, enabling teams to quickly identify and analyze suspicious activity without the need for technical expertise.
Seamless Integration: Druva’s solutions work in tandem with existing security tools, allowing organizations to enhance their threat response while maintaining compliance with industry regulations.
With Druva, data security evolves from a reactive process into a proactive defense strategy, providing organizations with the tools they need to stay one step ahead of cybercriminals. Experience the future of data security by leveraging Druva’s 100% SaaS-based platform to protect, detect, and investigate threats in real time.