Cyberstorage vs. Cyber Vaulting
They are often confused, but they solve different problems. A cyber vault gives you a clean copy to restore from after an attack. Cyberstorage defends the production data itself — detecting and stopping the attack before it spreads — and includes immutable vaulting as one native capability.
Cyber vaulting protects a copy of your data so you can recover after an attack. Cyberstorage protects the production data itself — detecting and stopping the attack inline — and delivers immutable vaulting as one of its capabilities. Vaulting is recovery insurance; Cyberstorage is active defense plus recovery.
What is cyber vaulting?
Cyber vaulting keeps an immutable, isolated copy of critical data — a guaranteed clean recovery point that survives even if production is compromised. It is the modern answer to “can we restore after ransomware?” Crucially, it is a recovery target: it does not watch, evaluate, or stop anything happening to your live data.
An isolated, immutable copy
A cyber vault holds a protected copy of critical data — immutable, often network-isolated or air-gapped — so an attacker who reaches production cannot also destroy the recovery point.
Built for recovery, not detection
The vault's job is to guarantee a clean restore point exists. It does not watch production traffic, does not evaluate access, and cannot tell that an attack is underway.
Usually separate infrastructure
Traditional cyber vaulting means a second cluster or appliance and a one-way data mover to feed it — a parallel environment to size, license, secure, and operate.
What is Cyberstorage?
Cyberstorage — the category Gartner named in 2021 — is storage that actively defends the data it holds. It inspects every operation inline, enforces zero-trust policy at the data layer, and recovers surgically when something gets through. Immutable vaulting is part of it, not the whole of it. Read the full definition →
Active defense on the live data
Cyberstorage inspects every file operation inline. Active Defense recognizes ransomware, insider exfiltration, and credentialed misuse and terminates the session at the storage layer — before the damage spreads.
Zero trust at the data layer
Attribute-based access control evaluates who, what, where, and how on every operation — not just at login — so policy follows the data continuously, not a permission set from six months ago.
Recovery built in — including vaulting
Immutable snapshots, ImmutaVault virtual air-gap vaulting, and Intelligent Bulk Remediation are native. You get the clean copy a vault provides plus the surgical recovery and active defense a vault cannot.
Cyber vaulting vs. Cyberstorage
What each one is for, when it acts, and what it can actually do during an attack.
| Dimension | Cyber Vaulting | Cyberstorage (BrickStor SP) |
|---|---|---|
| Primary purpose | Preserve a clean, recoverable copy of data to restore from after an incident | Defend the live production data itself — detect, contain, and recover |
| When it acts | After an attack — it is a recovery target, not a control | Before, during, and after — inline detection and response, plus recovery |
| What it protects | A separate, isolated copy of the data | The primary data in production, plus immutable recovery copies |
| Detects an attack in progress? | No — a vault cannot see what is happening to production data | Yes — behavioral analytics evaluate every file operation inline (Active Defense) |
| Stops an attack? | No — it gives you something to restore, nothing more | Yes — terminates the malicious session at the storage layer in under a second |
| Typical architecture | A separate vault cluster or appliance plus a one-way data mover | Built into the storage platform — no separate security infrastructure |
| Access control | Immutability and network isolation of the copy | Immutability plus ABAC zero-trust enforcement on every live operation |
| Recovery granularity | Restore from the vaulted copy — often whole data sets | Surgical — Intelligent Bulk Remediation rolls back only the files an attack touched |
| Relationship | A single capability you add to an environment | The architecture that includes vaulting as one native capability (ImmutaVault) |
Vaulting is necessary. It is not sufficient.
Cyber vaulting and Cyberstorage are not competing choices. Every organization should be able to recover from a clean, immutable copy — that is table stakes. The question is whether a clean copy is all you have.
A vault, on its own, accepts that the attack will succeed and bets everything on the restore. It cannot tell you an attack is underway, cannot stop exfiltration before the bytes leave, and cannot prevent a privileged insider from quietly reading data they should not. By the time you reach for the vault, the damage — encryption, deletion, or theft — has already happened.
Cyberstorage assumes you want the clean copy and the ability to stop the attack that would force you to use it.
One platform — active defense and a virtual air-gap vault
BrickStor SP is Cyberstorage, so it actively defends your production data with inline Active Defense, ABAC zero trust, immutable snapshots, and Intelligent Bulk Remediation. And it delivers cyber vaulting natively: ImmutaVault creates immutable, virtually air-gapped copies inside the platform that survive even when an attacker holds administrative credentials — no separate vault cluster, appliance, or data diode to build and run.
The result: you get the clean recovery copy a vault provides, the surgical recovery a vault cannot, and the active defense that keeps you from needing either in the first place — from a single platform.
Cyberstorage and cyber vaulting, answered
- No. Cyber vaulting is a single capability — keeping an immutable, isolated copy of data you can restore from after an attack. Cyberstorage is the broader architecture (the category Gartner named in 2021) where the storage system actively defends the production data itself: detecting and stopping threats inline, enforcing zero trust on every operation, and providing immutable recovery — which includes vaulting as one part.
- No. A cyber vault is a recovery mechanism, not a control. It cannot see or stop an attack on your production data — it only gives you a clean copy to restore from afterward. Stopping the attack as it happens requires inline detection and response at the storage layer, which is what Cyberstorage adds.
- With BrickStor SP you get cyber vaulting as a built-in capability. ImmutaVault creates immutable, virtually air-gapped copies inside the platform that survive even administrative compromise — so you get vault-grade recovery without standing up a separate vault cluster, appliance, or data diode alongside it.
- A virtual air gap delivers the isolation guarantees of a physically air-gapped vault — copies that cannot be modified or deleted, even by an administrator — without a separate offline system to build and operate. RackTop's ImmutaVault implements this inside BrickStor SP, so protected copies are a property of the storage rather than a parallel infrastructure project.
- No — they are complementary, and vaulting is necessary but not sufficient on its own. Every organization should be able to recover from a clean copy. Cyberstorage assumes you want that and adds the active defense that a vault alone cannot provide: detecting the attack, stopping it before it spreads, and recovering surgically.
Independently recognized. Externally validated.
Gartner named RackTop a sample vendor when it introduced the Cyberstorage category (2021)
See the category history →ESG Economic Validation: less than half the cost of alternative NAS solutions
Read the economic validation →ESG Technical Validation: stops ransomware at the storage layer in real time
Read the technical validation →Four U.S. patents on the Cyberstorage architecture
Review the patents →Validated with HPE, IBM, Nutanix, and more
See the technology alliances →
See active defense and a virtual air-gap vault in one platform
In a 30-minute demo we'll show Active Defense stopping an attack inline, ImmutaVault's immutable recovery copies, and Intelligent Bulk Remediation rolling back exactly what was touched.