Commvault Metalic ThreatWise enables Early Threat Detection and Zero Data Loss!

What is Metallic? Let’s start here…..As I had no idea really when I started writing this article.

Metallic is a Data Protection Vendor Commvault’s Data-Management-As-a-Service offering. It enables the protection of SaaS applications. Currently, its portfolio has the broadest number of SaaS apps and cloud partners but it’s growing: Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Salesforce, Azure, AWS, and Oracle. In each of these Cloud, partners allow you to do many things from backup VMs, Databases to backing up unstructured data and containers. Oh did I mention this works on Premises also? It does!

Three years ago in 2019, Commvault launched Metallic, This brought Commvault’s industry-proven technology to the cloud. Bringing them into the modern Cloud age and giving them a DMaaS (Data Management as a Service) stack. In turn, becoming the first service of its kind.

If you want to learn more about the history go here: https://metallic.io/why-metallic

Why is this such a big deal? Well as you all remember back in 2020 when we all decided to go home for no reason at all, and all the hardware we all needed to support this work-from-home movement we could not find, could not source, and if we could source it took MANY months to go get onsite. We all had to shift gears to moving things to the cloud.

And this cloud migration was done quickly, sometimes with little to no thought. Racking up some additional Technical Debt, due to some shortcuts that were taken to speed up the process. In hopes that everyone would come back around and fix Tech Debt. Well, we all have been in IT long enough to know that day never comes, until it breaks something or something worse happens…A breach or corruption that needs to restore. Another challenge with moving to the cloud is your traditional way of things, or your Traditional software stack may or may not work in the cloud. This is where Metallic comes into play. Allowing you to secure a way to back up your data in the cloud hybrid world, as most of us will never see a full cloud.

In today’s modern world there are constant security vulnerabilities hitting daily and honestly seem like hourly anymore. Just the systems I manage I seem to see a new one every other day! What does that mean for us that work in the business side of things, we need to get faster at remediation with the same resources we have now, and we must get better at the detection and defending of our environments and data.

What makes Metallic DMaaS Different from other offerings in the space?

Metallic safeguards your data from threats and delivers a high level of business continuity. All due to comprehensive and robust capabilities in the cloud such as its simple to configure and cloud-optimized strategy, with tools built to deliver ransomware-resilient protection. If you are interested in taking a look at this, feel free to take it on a test drive! https://metallic.io/trial

Great article on Metallic Cyber Deception: https://metallic.io/news/threatwise-cyber-deception

So what’s new with Metallic? ThreatWise! This new service introduced on the 21st of September 2022 is Commvault’s latest data security service as part of its Intelligent Data Services Portfolio

ThreatWise: What does Metallic ThreatWise actually do? It was really interesting to learn about this part. “Leveraging patented deception technology, Metallic® drops threat sensors around valuable assets
(such as file servers, databases, VMs, and even backups etc…), creating decoys within customer environments and serving as an early warning system.”

Unlike traditional honey pots, Theat decoy tactics are to actively engage the bad actor, giving the bad actor the true sense they operating in the real environment. This gives them a unique way to combat Zero-Day threats without the bad actor knowing any different! This enabled you as an administrator or a business stakeholder peace of mind. Knowing that when an attacker enters the network, they are looking for things to export out, and when they find file shares it’s a treasure trove they have been searching for. They will export the data out, and usually, the business never knows until they find their data on the internet, or if it’s all been encrypted. This is where Metallic ThreatWise’s early detection system for critical business data comes into play. Giving you an early warning system for data threats before the bad actor reaches your data.

Containing threats and data impact through early warning
• Mimic – Dilutes the attack surface by deploying indistinguishable fake decoys, at scale
• Trip – Draws bad actors into compromising false customer resources
• Alert – Exposes malicious activity with real-time, high-fidelity alerts
• Respond – Works seamlessly with security technology to accelerate remediation and
contain threats before leakage, encryption, or exfiltration

What Makes Metallic ThreatWise different?

Unlike most other Data Protection solutions, Metallic ThreatWise is focused on early detection, not after-the-fact recovery! And give the organization an easy-to-deploy early detection system as a service. Also, its “Patented Deception Technology” gives you a way to confuse or intercept the bad actors before they can harm the system. Saving you time and money as the point of the system is not to have to restore from backups. And because is it SaaS-based, it is easy to deploy.
Below are a few Screenshots of the product picking up an active attacker, and the coverage:

My thoughts: Jumping into this, was not sure what to think, I was just thinking this was another backup product, but was wrong. This has morphed into a Next Gen product, that gives you as a customer to protect data inside your borders and outside your borders. Allowing you the freedom to run Hybrid Cloud Environment and use the same product across all cloud environments. Commvault has always been a huge player in the backup industry, and now learning what they have done with Metallic and ThreatWise is great. The ability to enable an early detection system for your critical business data is huge.

Learn more about Metallic ThreatWise here: