After reading a few of these blogs, you’re probably aware of Cobalt Iron’s stable of patented technologies being inserted into the Compass enterprise SaaS backup platform. These technologies have a lot to do with what makes Compass’ automated, intelligent data protection possible ... and what keeps the praise coming from customers, analysts, and industry groups.
Our latest U.S. patent is on Cobalt Iron’s adaptive, policy-driven data cyber inspection technology. This patent introduces new policy-based approaches for effectively validating data integrity using multiple cyber inspection tools.
So, what does that really mean?
Basically, because of this patented technology, Compass will be able to apply different cyber inspection tools proactively based on data types, points in the data lifecycle, types of cyber attacks, and other factors.
In particular, two novel factors qualify this technology for a patent:
- It introduces policy-based control to data inspection that responds to various times or events in the life cycle of a data object.
- It includes policy-driven cyber inspection that leverages multiple cyber inspection tools and multiple cyber inspection levels:
- at different times or events in the life cycle of a data object,
- for different types of data,
- or for different types of cyber events or conditions.
Why You Need It
While cyber threats and attacks continue to accelerate, operational responses to these attacks remain reactive, disjointed, and manual. During cyber attacks, CIOs, security officers, and other data custodians are typically panicked and scrambling to understand the scope of data damage and what they can do to validate the integrity of their data.
What It Does
The newly patented capabilities mean you’ll be able to monitor and validate data proactively using whatever cyber inspection tools are most appropriate and effective for given data or cyber threats. You’ll also be able to establish and easily adjust cyber inspection security policies that ensure your data is being monitored and validated consistently across the enterprise — as opposed to the manual, reactive, haphazard approaches employed today. These cyber inspection security policies provide data security consistency and can prove data custody discipline to the business.
The techniques disclosed in this patent:
- Monitor for various times and events in the life cycle of data objects, such as creation, modification, backup, recovery, security audit, and cyber attack.
- Apply an inspection-class policy to determine what cyber inspection and level of inspection to perform on a data object upon occurrence of a specific time or event.
- Perform an inspection-class operation and a level of cyber inspection on the data object.
- Restore a copy of a data object within a security zone upon occurrence of a specific time or event involving the data object.
- Perform a data protection operation on a data object upon occurrence of a specific time or event involving the data object.
For example, these techniques could detect indications of a cyber attack and perform specific types and levels of virus-scanning against specific data objects or types of data. They might also perform specific types and levels of cyber scans for specific types of attacks.
In another example, this patent will allow your business to establish cyber security policies for using different data-inspection tools — such as virus or malware scans — for different data objects or data types or for different types of attacks. Additionally, your organization can easily modify what scanning tools are used and adjust other security operations by simply modifying the cyber security policies. In this manner, Compass will automatically use the most current, best-of-breed inspection tools in the most effective way for given data and for a given event, all directed by consistent policy.
What It Means for You
Other enterprise data protection tools don’t provide this level of cyber security robustness and policy-driven consistency.
In today’s data protection landscape, it’s critical to use optimal inspection techniques that respond to particular events in the enterprise. A single inspection tool and manual cyber security operations miss the mark. With this patent, Cobalt Iron will put you in the best position to take advantage of best-in-class inspection tools proactively, with policy-driven automation, optimization, and governance.
There’s a steady stream of Cobalt Iron-patented technologies coming your way in future blogs.
Meanwhile, if you want to know more, get in touch.
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