What is Recovery?

Recovery begins only after eradication is complete. Returning systems to production before the threat is fully removed risks immediate re-compromise. Recovery involves: rebuilding or restoring from clean backups, validating system integrity before production return, gradually restoring connectivity (controlled sequence, not all at once), and enhanced monitoring to detect re-establishment.

Backup integrity is critical. Ransomware groups specifically target backup systems. Restored backups may be compromised if the attacker had sufficient access. Verify backups predate the compromise and are free of malware. Immutable offline backups are the gold standard.

Recovery also includes post-incident activities: lessons-learned review documenting what happened, what worked, what failed, and what changes are needed. Updates to detection rules, playbooks, and controls based on findings. Regulatory notifications as required.