Replicate Your Full IT Environment in Software with Thin Digital Twins

Bernardo Starosta, CEO, VM2020 Solutions

This is the second in a series of blogs introducing thin digital twins—VM2020’s pioneering approach to fully simulating real-world IT environments.

In my previous blog I reviewed some of the limitations of conventional cyber simulation and modeling solutions. In this blog I explain how VM2020 thin digital twins let you fully simulate your production IT environment without the overhead or complexity of traditional solutions.

What is a Thin Digital Twin?

A thin digital twin is an entirely new concept, patented by VM2020, to deliver breakthrough economics, agility, and simplicity. Thin digital twins create an instant replica of a full-scale production run-time IT environment, in software, at previously unachievable price-points. IT and security professionals can use thin digital twins for a variety of purposes from threat hunting, to vulnerability assessment, to threat containment and remediation.

A VM2020 thin digital twin provides an exact likeness of compute, storage, and networking resources, and an exact likeness of applications, configurations, and data without the expense or inefficiencies of traditional simulation and modeling solutions. We leverage virtualization and containerization technologies to optimize resource utilization, minimize infrastructure expenses, and enable agility and ephemerality (with VM2020, you can instantly spin up and tear down replicas). We also use advanced data optimization algorithms to avoid fully duplicating data and minimize storage consumption. The VM2020 solution is virtual, verifiably air-gapped to prevent the spread of ransomware and other malware. And you can use thin digital twins to replicate on-premises, cloud, and hybrid infrastructure.

Thin Digital Twin Advantages for IT and Cybersecurity

Thin digital twins provide a true digital representation of your production environment without the cost and complexity of a physical clone. You can run complex simulations without compromising your production environment or impacting live applications. You can go backward or forward in time to perform descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive analytics. And we support virtual generators and sensors that let you inject traffic, perform and analyze actions, and measure results.

You can use thin digital twins for a variety of functions including:

●      IT operations and DevOps – change management, patches, upgrades, testing, support, etc.

●      Security – vulnerability assessment, pen testing, threat hunting, threat isolation and remediation, etc.

●      Risk management and compliance – evaluation, attestation, etc.

An intuitive UI makes it easy for IT and security professionals to stand up replicas, run simulations, and carry out investigations. No special training or knowledge is required.

Thin Digital Twin Benefits – Improve Proactive and Reactive Measures

Thin digital twins provide an array of benefits for security and IT organizations. They can help you:

●      Improve readiness. With VM2020 you can run live tests on real-world configurations; carry out red team/blue team exercises; and validate fixes, configuration changes, and software releases without impacting production systems.

●      Proactively identify and address root causes. WithVM2020 you can go upstream in company processes to pinpoint root causes, and take proactive corrective measures to eliminate vulnerabilities and improve your security posture.

●      Accelerate response and recovery. You can use thin digital twins to investigate, isolate, and remediate live attacks, and to contain threats before attackers can escalate privileges and move laterally across your network. You can recover to multiple points in time to isolate attacks and identify vulnerabilities. And you can easily verify remediations to ensure predictable, proven recovery methods.

●      Increase insights and streamline compliance. You can use thin digital twins to gather evidence for regulatory compliance or cyber insurance attestation. VM2020 can help you simplify audits and avoid compliance fines and legal exposure.

Conclusion

Thin digital twins eliminate the expense and complexity of traditional IT simulation and modeling tools, fully replicating a production IT environment at a fraction of the cost of alternative approaches. They provide unmatched simplicity and agility, helping you improve insights, increase readiness, and accelerate remediation.

In future blogs I’ll review some specific use cases for thin digital twins like zero-day ransomware recovery, eliminating patching hesitancy, proofing infrastructure or application changes, and automated penetration testing.

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