Commvault and SimSpace, a global leader in high-fidelity cyber range solutions, have announced the Commvault Recovery Range, powered by SimSpace.
Commvault Recovery Range is the first hands-on cyber range that will enable defenders to battle sophisticated cyber threats and real-world attacks while also equipping them with the skills required to navigate and rapidly recover from cyber crises.
Traditional cyber ranges focus on detecting and containing attacks, leaving response and recovery scenarios outside of their scope. Commvault Recovery Range goes much farther in a setting that models the defender’s own production environment. Utilizing SimSpace’s award-winning cyber range platform and Commvault’s exceptional recovery offerings, Commvault Recovery Range will provide an immersive learning experience where defenders can practice the entire end-to-end incident lifecycle, from detection through validated cleanpoint recovery.
The need for this type of end-to-end cyber resilience training has never been greater. Research shows an organization falls victim to ransomware every 14 seconds1, and the average downtime from an attack can span upwards of 24 days2 – costing enterprises millions of dollars in lost revenue, reputational damage, and operational disruption. Preparation that starts with the attack and ends with a rapid, clean recovery can make all the difference in reducing downtime and helping organizations run in a state of continuous business.
“Together with SimSpace, we are offering companies something that’s truly unique in the market – the physical, emotional, and psychological experience of a real-world cyberattack and the harrowing challenges often experienced in attempting to rapidly recover,” said Bill O’Connell, Chief Security Officer, Commvault. “In combining SimSpace’s authentic cyberattack simulations with Commvault’s leading cyber recovery capabilities, we’re giving companies the ability to strengthen their security posture, cyber readiness, and business resilience.”
“In an era of relentless cyber threats, we created SimSpace to give security and IT professionals an authentic, hands-on understanding of how attacks unfold in the most realistic environments possible,” said William, “Hutch”, Hutchison, CEO of SimSpace. “Our partnership with Commvault, takes the experience to the next level – by integrating the critical recovery component, we’re delivering a complete cyber preparedness lifecycle that helps organizations minimize downtime and prevent devastating losses.”
With Commvault Recovery Range, defenders will experience:
- Hands-on attack simulations: Defenders step into a hyper-realistic environment that mirrors their actual networks, infrastructure, and day-to-day operations – complete with simulated users logging in and out, sending emails, and interacting with applications. During this high-fidelity experience, defenders face sophisticated attacks, like Netwalker, that can be challenging to detect. They are forced to make decisions and execute strategic responses under pressure as the clock is ticking.
- Real-world recovery exercises: Unlike other cyber ranges, users will face no-win recovery scenarios and learn the hard way the importance of validating backups, cleaning infected data, and executing swift restorations. Recovery exercises include using Commvault Cloud for threat scanning, Air Gap Protect for immutable storage, Cleanroom Recovery for on-demand recovery testing, and Cloud Rewind to automatically rebuild cloud-native apps – so defenders can recover their business rapidly, without reinfecting it.
- Drills that bring disparate teams together: Managing and recovering from an attack cannot happen in silos. In the Commvault Recovery Range, CSOs, CISOs, CIOs, IT Ops, and SecOps must all work together to emerge with a cohesive strategy for handling crises and restoring core services swiftly.
“Creating muscle memory in cyber recovery operations requires more than a degree and years of experience. It takes continued practitioner-level training, where security and IT teams engage together in live-fire exercises. That’s how you properly prepare, know you have the right technology in place, and create confidence in your teams’ ability to recover. When a cyber incident occurs and time-to-recovery really matters, this training will be critical,” said Roland Cloutier, Founder, The Business Protection Group and former Global Chief Security Officer, TikTok.
“The Commvault Recovery Range will make a huge difference for our resiliency planning,” said Michele Buschman, Chief Information Officer, American Pacific Mortgage. “The realistic attack scenarios and recovery drills will help instill a sense of confidence in our recovery process and in understanding exactly what we need to do to get back up and running quickly – essential to keeping our business running smoothly.”
“IT teams can’t prepare for a cyberattack with just a playbook any more than a football team can practice on just a chalk board,” said Phil Goodwin, Research Vice President, IDC. “Teams need to practice under game conditions. This new Commvault Recovery Range puts cyber response teams into a realistic simulation where ITOps, SecOps, and line-of-business teams must work together – facing real-world attack scenarios requiring uncertain decisions while attempting to recover. Exercise participants learn where they have gaps and what best-in-class cyber-preparedness should look like when the inevitable attack takes place. It’s great to see Commvault and SimSpace partnering to bring this unique experience to the industry. This is a huge advancement in modern cyber preparedness training.”
“For years, the industry has focused cyber range training primarily on threat detection and mitigation, often treating recovery as a separate, less-practiced discipline. The Commvault Recovery Range fundamentally closes that gap by uniquely bringing together SimSpace’s realistic, high-fidelity attack simulation and Commvault’s expertise in recovery,” said Krista Case, Research Director, Futurum Group. “Commvault and SimSpace are truly helping organizations build the muscle memory needed not just to fight off attackers, but to rapidly and safely get back to business afterward.”
The Path to Minimum Viability
Another reason Commvault is partnering with SimSpace is to help companies understand their “minimum viability,” i.e., the critical applications, assets, processes, and people required for an organization to recover following a cyberattack. Minimum viability is tantamount to achieving continuous business. And tools like Commvault Recovery Range will make it even easier for companies to understand what their minimum viability is – testing their skills so that when an attack happens, they know what to do.
