Cyber threats are evolving faster than ever. Organizations depend on multiple tools to detect risks, protect systems, and prevent disruption, but attackers are getting smarter and harder to stop. According to the Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025¹, one in every six attacks was AI-driven, highlighting the growing sophistication of threats and the urgent need for proactive defense strategies.

This is where IBM Storage Defender Data Resiliency Service (DRS) comes in. DRS empowers organizations to stay ahead of disruption with a unified, intelligent approach to data protection. By breaking down storage and backup silos, DRS delivers a single pane of visibility across your entire infrastructure, helping you identify risks, close coverage gaps, and strengthen your resiliency posture.

With AI-driven sensors that detect anomalies in real time, centralized alert management, and secure clean-room recovery environments, DRS ensures threats are contained and recovery is trusted. Combined with automated workflows and compliance alignment, DRS transforms resiliency from a reactive process into a proactive strategy—so your business stays secure, compliant, and ready for anything.

IBM Storage Defender continues to evolve with features designed to make your organization more resilient, more secure, and more efficient.

Simplifying Maintenance and Reducing Risk

In complex environments, manually updating sensors can be a tedious and risky process. Outdated components can compromise security and resiliency. To address this, IBM Storage Defender now enables auto-update by default starting with version 2.0.18.

Sensors running version 2.0.17 can upgrade to 2.0.18 using the On-demand option, and future releases will allow full automation through the IBM Storage Defender connection manager. This enhancement reduces administrative overhead, ensures consistency across deployments, and gives users confidence that their environment is always running the latest, most secure version—without manual intervention.

Application Dependency Mapping

When managing multiple applications and recovery groups, understanding how components interact is critical. Without visibility, hidden dependencies can lead to recovery delays or errors. IBM Storage Defender introduces Application Dependency Mapping to solve this challenge.

This feature enables customers to define logical dependencies between previously created applications, each containing multiple recovery groups across diverse workload types. By mapping these relationships, users gain a clearer view of how components interact within their environment, improving visibility and impact analysis. This capability lays the foundation for creating highly granular and accurate recovery plans, ensuring that critical services are restored in the correct sequence during a resiliency event.

Granular Environment Visualization

Visibility is the first step to security. In complex environments, blind spots can lead to recovery delays or even data loss during a cyberattack or outage. IBM Storage Defender’s Granular Environment Visualization provides the clarity needed to safeguard critical workloads.

This functionality delivers an interactive visualization of recovery groups and their connections to underlying storage and backup systems. Users can drill down into detailed objects such as volumes, hosts, datastores, VMs, and databases. Enhanced filtering options reduce clutter, allowing users to focus on specific components and maintain clarity while navigating complex environments. By delivering deeper insights into infrastructure relationships, this feature supports more informed resiliency planning and helps organizations validate recovery paths before disaster strikes.

Enhanced Get Started Page

The updated Get Started page introduces a dynamic carousel showcasing curated resources such as IBM Redbooks, community forums, and upcoming events—all in one place. By surfacing relevant content upfront, this feature helps users stay informed, accelerate learning, and engage with the broader resiliency ecosystem. Informed users make better decisions, which translates into stronger protection for applications and data.

Trial Help

To support users during their trial experience, IBM Storage Defender now includes a “Get Help” email option, providing a direct channel for assistance. This ensures that questions or issues are resolved quickly, reducing the risk of misconfigurations and enabling users to gain confidence in leveraging the product’s security and resiliency capabilities from day one

Favorites in Recovery Groups View

Managing dozens—or even hundreds—of recovery groups can be overwhelming. Navigating through long lists is time-consuming and prone to error, especially during critical recovery scenarios. The new Favorites feature solves this by allowing users to prioritize what matters most.

With the Star icon added to the Recovery Groups table view, users can mark frequently accessed recovery groups and organize them for quick access. Each row also includes a selection checkbox, enabling bulk actions to add or remove favorites. This small but impactful enhancement makes the interface more intuitive, streamlines navigation, and ensures that critical recovery operations happen faster when every second counts.

Cyber threats are not slowing down, they’re becoming more sophisticated, more automated, and more disruptive. Organizations need more than just detection; they need confidence in recovery and proactive protection. IBM Storage Defender Data Resiliency Service delivers exactly that by combining advanced security layers, intelligent automation, and deep visibility into your environment.

From features that simplify daily operations like Favorites and Sensor Auto-Update, to capabilities that strengthen resiliency planning such as Application Dependency Mapping and Granular Visualization, these enhancements are designed to keep your applications safe, your data secure, and your business running—even in the face of evolving threats.

Learn more about IBM Storage Defender in https://www.ibm.com/products/storage-defender

¹ Cost of a Data Breach Report, 2025. IBM