Commvault has released Active Directory protection to enhance its cloud-based platform.iStockProtecting Microsoft Active Directory is vital for enterprises to ensure secure and uninterrupted operations. AD is the backbone of enterprise IT, managing authentication and access for over 610 million users worldwide, spanning millions of organizations across various industries and company sizes. It governs access to essential resources including applications, databases and physical security systems. Its central role makes it a prime target for cyberattacks, where a compromised AD can disrupt critical processes, delay services or even halt operations.Recently, the Five Eyes intelligence alliance issued warnings about persistent cyber threats targeting AD, highlighting its vulnerabilities and critical role in enterprise networks. Its important to understand ADs significance, the impacts of security breaches affecting it and how Commvault is addressing these vulnerabilities.Why Active Directory Has Such A Significant Business ImpactAD breaches and outages pose significant risks for disrupting operations, finances, and reputations across industries. A compromised AD can halt factory production, ground airline operations or block employee access to critical systems. Attackers often exploit AD to spread malware, compounding the damage. The financial impacts are significant, with direct and indirect costs including remediation, legal fees and regulatory fines.The consequences of AD breaches go beyond immediate disruptions. Organizations may face higher cyber insurance premiums, lower credit ratings and the exposure of sensitive customer data. Breaches also strain customer relationships and expose intellectual property, creating long-term operational challenges. Strong AD security measures are crucial to reduce these risks and ensure business continuity.The Five Eyes advisory highlights 17 critical Active Directory attack types, such as password spraying, Kerberoasting and golden ticket attacks, as well as vulnerabilities in trust configurations and credential storage.MORE FOR YOUSeveral major AD breaches illustrate the risks. In 2018, Ticketmaster suffered an incident where hackers accessed 1.3 terabytes of customer data. In 2021, an AT&T data leak exposed 73 million customer records. A massive cyberattack on National Public Data in April 2024 compromised up to 2.9 billion records. And the list goes on.How Commvault Addresses Active Directory Security ChallengesCommvault has just introduced Cloud Backup & Recovery for Active Directory Enterprise Edition to simplify and automate AD forest recovery. Traditionally, forest recovery involves manual steps such as restoring domain controllers, rebuilding trust relationships, synchronizing data and sequencing recovery tasks, all of which are prone to errors and can cause extended downtime. Recovering an AD forest is complex, requiring 50 to 100 steps or even more to restore it to its pre-attack state, which can take days or weeks. The Commvault Cloud platform now integrates AD forest recovery with granular recovery of both Active Directory and Entra ID, the cloud-based identity service. By automating these critical recovery steps, Commvaults solution should help reduce downtime, minimize disruptions and ensure faster restoration of AD environments.Recovering Active Directory is foundational to maintaining continuous business after a cyberattack, yet traditional methods are too complex and prone to error, said Pranay Ahlawat, Commvaults chief technology and AI officer. Key features include automated recovery runbooks, which guide IT teams through the restoration process and handle tasks such as transferring roles from unavailable domain controllers and sequencing AD component recovery. Visual topology mapping provides an interactive overview of the AD environment, allowing IT teams to prioritize recovery efforts.Commvaults platform also integrates AD recovery with other workloads affecting databases and cloud environments, thus streamlining IT operations and improving governance. Proactive testing and validation capabilities help identify process gaps, vulnerabilities and misconfigurations before they result in downtime. By automating recovery processes, the solution can also lower recovery costs, help reduce reliance on specialized personnel and allow IT teams to focus on strategic initiatives.Improving Active Directory Protection To Increase Cyber ResilienceCyberattacks targeting identity infrastructure, particularly Microsofts AD, have become increasingly frequent and sophisticated. When AD experiences downtime, the consequences can be far-reaching, even disrupting employee access to essential tools such as email and payroll systems.Recognizing these challenges, enterprises require a reliable and automated solution for swift recovery to minimize potential damage. Commvaults AD solution addresses these issues by automating the complex and time-consuming steps of AD recovery. Better, this solution is housed within the same Commvault Cloud platform that protects an array of other critical workloads. With its anticipated release in the first quarter of 2025, the new product aims to provide organizations with a practical approach to securing and recovering their identity infrastructure, enhancing preparedness to face cybersecurity challenges.