
What does Spectra Logic mean when the company says that a storage solution is “Attack Hardened”?
Download the White Paper
The process of hardening a material or substance is hardly new. The “fire-hardened” spear is one of the most iconic weapons of the Paleolithic era and dates back over 450,000 years.
Attack-hardened storage could be viewed in a similar light, in part based on Spectra’s ability to prevail against a May 2020 “Netwalker” ransomware attack against our internal IT systems. There are many different elements offered to protect storage. Spectra brings those elements together to offer a more solid solution capable of avoiding “give” when under attack. Some of the elements we work with in this approach are already known, some are enhanced, and some are new. By forging these features and approaches together, Spectra is able to offer storage that is made stronger, more efficient and better able to withstand the heat of attack from external threat actors, internal actors and even natural or manmade disasters.

Attack-Hardened Storage:
- External cyber and insider attacks
- Immutable storage
- Multi-factor authentication
- Multiple levels of air gap
- Encryption at rest
- Rapid recovery
Threat Protection Software:
- Perimeter, network and endpoint security solutions — detect, analyze, block, and contain attacks in progress
- Backup applications — Rubrik, Veeam, Commvault, Cohesity, etc.
- Storage Lifecycle Management apps for reducing attack surface
- SIEM for monitoring and reporting
Spectra is enriching its entire data management and data storage portfolio with Attack-Hardened features to help customers mitigate cyberthreats, whether they come inside or outside.
BlackPearl Attack-Hardened Features
![]() |
Immutable Snapshots: Snapshots, or point-in-time copies of a volume, let you restore a volume to the state it was in when the snapshot was created. A snapshot only consumes the space of the changed blocks, which makes them very space efficient. |
![]() |
Multiple Types of Air Gap:
|
![]() |
Multi-Factor Authentication: BlackPearl works with Google Authenticator to confirm the identity of any user trying to log into the BlackPearl system. |
![]() |
Timed and Triggered Snapshots: BlackPearl interfaces with backup software via pre and postscripts. After the snapshot is complete, Spectra provides code to be used to make the target volume read only. This can be done on a time or job basis. |
![]() |
Multi-Site Replication: BlackPearl can replicate to another volume in the same BlackPearl system, a separate system located in the same onsite location, a different offsite location, or a remote cloud target. |
![]() |
Self-Encryption: BlackPearl can be configured with self- encrypting drives (SED). This is excellent protection of the data if a drive is being sent back for repair or being disposed of at end of life. |