NCSC Ransomware-Resistant
Backup Principles
How Firevault maps to the National Cyber Security Centre principles for backups that survive a destructive attack. Principle by principle, with the architectural answer for each.
Five NCSC Principles, Five Firevault Answers
NCSC publishes its principles freely at ncsc.gov.uk. The titles below use NCSC's exact wording, mapped to the Firevault capability that satisfies each.
Backups should be resilient to destructive actions
NCSC asks that backups survive an attacker who has reached the production estate. Firevault Offline Secure Storage holds the gold copy on hardware that is physically disconnected at Layer 1. A destructive action on production cannot reach a target that has no network interface.
A backup system should be configured so that it is not possible to deny customers access to their data
Cloud backup consoles can be locked out, billing-suspended or have their identity layer abused. Firevault uses a separate management plane and customer-held identity factors. Connection windows are scheduled and identity-verified, so no single account compromise can deny access to the data.
The system should allow you to restore from a backup of last resort
Firevault is designed to be exactly that backup of last resort. The gold copy sits offline in carefully selected colocation bunkers and is brought online only inside an identity-verified connection window, with every event logged on a tamper-evident audit trail.
The actions required to access backups should be sufficiently distinct from day to day actions
Accessing Firevault is not the same workflow as accessing production. It requires a scheduled physical connection, a separate identity, and out-of-band approval. An attacker living in the production environment does not inherit a path to the offline copy.
Backups should be regularly tested
Customers can schedule recurring verification windows where the offline copy is brought online, checksum-verified and partially restored without exposing the rest of the estate. Test events are logged on the same tamper-evident audit trail used for live restores.
What Auditors and Insurers Actually Get
Principles only matter if you can prove them. Firevault produces the evidence regulators, insurers and boards now ask for.
Tamper-evident audit trail
Every connection, disconnection, identity verification and restore is recorded on a management plane that does not share the data path. Customers receive evidence packs suitable for regulators, insurers and board reporting.
Layer 1, not Layer 2
Hardened repositories and immutable buckets sit on the network and depend on software policy. Firevault sits below the network at the physical layer of the OSI model. The control cannot be bypassed in software because there is no software path while offline.
Read the underlying architectural argument and related compliance mappings.
NCSC Principles, Common Questions
Map Firevault to your NCSC evidence pack
Talk to the Firevault team about producing a principle-by-principle evidence pack for your board, regulator or insurer.
Takes about 2 minutes. No account needed.