An air gap is the separation of a backup or system from any network so it cannot be reached online. It can be physical, such as a tape stored outside the data center, or logical, such as storage that only connects during the backup window. That way, ransomware that encrypts the network cannot reach the isolated copy.
Go deeper on the TecnetBlog: How to Protect Your Backups Against Ransomware
air-gapped backup, offline backup, logical air gap, isolated backup
Related terms
IT change management
IT change management, also called change control, is the process of planning, assessing, approving and documenting any modification to a company's systems, networks or applications before it goes live. Its goal is to prevent outages and security gaps. For example, a firewall update is scheduled for an agreed maintenance window, with prior testing and a rollback plan.
Cyber resilience
Cyber resilience is a company's ability to prevent, withstand and recover from a cybersecurity incident without shutting down operations. It goes beyond blocking attacks: it combines protection, detection, backups and response plans. For example, if ransomware encrypts the billing servers, a cyber-resilient company restores them from isolated backups and resumes invoicing within hours.
BaaS (backup as a service)
Backup as a service (BaaS) is a model in which a provider manages a company's backups in its cloud, scheduling, encrypting, storing and verifying them for a monthly fee, with no servers or tapes to buy. It is not the same as backend as a service, which uses the same acronym in app development.
Failover and failback
Failover is the process of shifting operations from a primary system to a standby system when the primary fails, either automatically or manually, so the service stays available. Failback is the controlled return to the primary system once it is restored, syncing any data created during the outage. For example, billing runs on a cloud replica and later moves back on-premises.
Immutable backup
An immutable backup is a copy that, once written, cannot be changed or deleted for a defined period, not even with administrator credentials. It is one of the strongest defenses against ransomware, because attackers often target backups before encrypting the data.
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