Data Integrity: Recovering from Ransomware and Other Destructive Events

Download the Final Practice Guide

The NCCoE has released the final version of NIST Cybersecurity Practice Guide SP 1800-11, Data Integrity: Recovering from Ransomware and Other Destructive Events. Use the buttons below to view this publication in its entirety or scroll down for links to a specific section.

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The NCCoE recently released the final version of the NIST Cybersecurity Practice Guide SP 1800-11, Data Integrity: Recovering from Ransomware and Other Destructive Events.

For ease of use, the guide is available in volumes:

SP 1800-11a: Executive Summary (PDF)
SP 1800-11b: Approach, Architecture, and Security Characteristics (PDF)
SP 1800-11c: How-To Guides (PDF)

Or download the complete guide (PDF).

Cybersecurity White Paper

The NCCoE has released Securing Data Integrity Against Ransomware Attacks: Using the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and NIST Cybersecurity Practice Guides, a white paper that provides an overview of the three Data Integrity projects and how they align with the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. This paper offers a high-level explanation of the architecture and capabilities, and it explains how these projects can be brought together into one comprehensive data integrity solution.

Constant threats of destructive malware, ransomware, malicious insider activity, and even honest mistakes create the imperative for organizations to be able to quickly recover from an event that alters or destroys data. Businesses must be confident that recovered data is accurate and safe. The National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE)—in collaboration with members of the business community and vendors of cybersecurity solutions—created an example solution to address these complex data integrity challenges.

Multiple systems need to work together to prevent, detect, notify, and recover from events that corrupt data. This project explores methods to effectively recover operating systems, databases, user files, applications, and software/system configurations. It also explores issues of auditing and reporting (user activity monitoring, file system monitoring, database monitoring, and rapid recovery solutions) to support recovery and investigations. To address real-world business challenges around data integrity, the example solution is composed of open-source and commercially available components.

The goal of this building block effort is to help organizations confidently identify:

Altered data, as well as the date and time of alteration
The identity/identities of those who alter data
Other events that coincide with data alteration
Any impact of the data alteration
The correct backup version (free of corrupted data) for data restoration

Read the two-page fact sheet for a brief overview of this project and view the NCCoE data integrity demo videos.

If you have questions or suggestions, please email us at ds-nccoe@nist.gov. To receive announcements about additional milestones, sign up for our email alerts.

For archival purposes, you may download the Project Description.

Collaborating Vendors

Organizations participating in this project submitted their capabilities in response to an open call in the Federal Register for all sources of relevant security capabilities from academia and industry (vendors and integrators). The following respondents with relevant capabilities or product components (identified as “Technology Partners/Collaborators” herein) signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement to collaborate with NIST in a consortium to build this example solution.

_{Certain commercial entities, equipment, products, or materials may be identified by name or company logo or other insignia in order to acknowledge their participation in this collaboration or to describe an experimental procedure or concept adequately. Such identification is not intended to imply special status or relationship with NIST or recommendation or endorsement by NIST or NCCoE; neither is it intended to imply that the entities, equipment, products, or materials are necessarily the best available for the purpose.}

Join Our Community of Interest

Interested in joining the Data Integrity: Recovering from Ransomware and Other Destructive Events Community of Interest? Contact us!

A Community of Interest is a group of professionals and technical advisors convened to support the cybersecurity resiliency of the U.S. economy. Read More.