Introducing Covert Copy: Your Ultimate Line of Defense Against Ransomware

Data has become the main currency of business, which makes it a primary target for attackers. With ransomware increasing, insider threats evolving, and compliance requirements becoming stricter, companies need a safeguard that attackers cannot compromise.

On Tuesday, December 2nd, Wasabi introduced Covert Copy, a patent-pending feature of Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage that enables users to create a locked, hidden copy of selected storage buckets. This protected copy ensures that critical data remains untouchable, even in the event of a ransomware attack.

Making enterprise-class protection simple and affordable

A key component of any ransomware attack is the extraction of business-critical, sensitive data, followed closely by the encryption and/or destruction of that data. Backup data has become part of that attack vector to maximize the damage and extract the highest possible ransom.

Until now, implementing a virtual air gap from other cloud providers has required sophisticated security and system knowledge and management of complex tools, policies, and rules. Often, customers choose to live with the risk rather than spend the resources and time.

Covert Copy removes that complexity with streamlined and effortless implementation. Because it is an included feature of Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage, users can simply select the data to be secured and initiate the protection process with just a few clicks. This seamless setup and operation of advanced data protection at the storage level makes it incredibly easy for users to select what needs to be protected.

Covert Copy introduces a new security layer, giving businesses total control over their most vital data, whether that be system and data backups, AI data sets, personally identifiable information (PII), or intellectual property that drives competitive advantage.

Five key pillars of Covert Copy

We built Covert Copy with a few key features in mind. Each one reflects a different layer of protection that works together to create a secure, hidden, and protected version of your data.

• Invisible: Attackers can’t target what they can’t see. Covert Copy is hidden from view and only revealed with full security approval.

• Perfect replica: Creates an untouchable copy of your data, ensuring it’s always available and recoverable.

• Immutable: Locked tight, unchangeable, undeletable, and unencryptable, delivering compliance-ready data protection.

• Inaccessible: Even if attackers breach your network, Covert Copy stays out of reach, requiring multi-user authentication (MUA) approval for access.

• Next-level account protection: MUA secures both data and storage accounts, removing single points of failure.

Covert Copy: The benefits that matter

Ransomware is becoming more damaging and more difficult to recover from. Cybercrime Magazine projects ransomware costs will reach $57 billion in 2025, with damages reaching more than $20 billion per month in 2031.

A big reason for that surge is the shift in attacker behavior, where the target is the very systems that organizations rely on for recovery. In Veeam’s 2025 Ransomware Trends report, most organizations (89%) saw their backup repositories come under attack, and on average, about a third of those were altered or wiped out. Recovery success was just as impacted: fewer than one in ten respondents restored over 90% of their servers as planned, and only about half managed to bring most of their systems back online.

When a line of defense becomes the target, the cost and complexity of an attack multiply. Regulators are tightening immutability requirements, and cyber-insurance providers now demand proof of last-line data protection for policy renewals.

That is the gap Covert Copy is designed to close. In an economy where proprietary algorithms and AI models carry enormous value, Covert Copy gives organizations a protected and hidden version of their most valuable data that attackers cannot alter or delete.

Creating a Covert Copy affords you the following benefits:

• Security: Protects critical data with logically air-gapped, immutable storage, whether for customer records, financial data, or proprietary technology like AI models that represent years of development investment.

• Compliance: Meets SEC, FINRA, HIPAA, and GDPR data protection standards, and industry-specific data retention and protection standards.

• Disaster recovery: Ensures data remains intact and quickly recoverable, even after an attack.

• Control: Provides granular security, selective air-gapping, and multi-user governance for even the most sensitive intellectual property.

Real-world applications

From financial records to AI companies' machine learning models, Covert Copy provides an invisible fortress for your organization's most valuable digital assets. While competitors worry about IP theft, your team can focus on innovation.

Some of the ideal uses for Covert Copy include:

Backup data: Create secure, invisible, and immutable copy of backup data that can’t be found by a non-root user. More than just ransomware mitigation, Covert Copy prevents a ransomware attack by making the data in a Covert Copy bucket unfindable and inaccessible.

Archiving and compliance: Create a Covert Copy of a subset of archived content that is particularly sensitive (e.g., intellectual property such as patent info, PII, medical records, etc.) or other data subject to compliance mandates.

Recovery vault: Store application or software licenses, disaster recovery plans or contact lists, environment topologies, and critical confidential recovery data.

Covert Copy gives organizations a straightforward way to keep a clean, hidden version of their most important data inside Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage. As ransomware becomes more disruptive and expensive, this kind of predictable, storage-level protection helps teams respond with less downtime and more confidence.