Rubrik: 3 Critical Zones in a Cyber Recovery Environment

Name: Rubrik: 3 Critical Zones in a Cyber Recovery Environment
Uploaded: 2026-09-01T08:25:03-04:00
Duration: 57 s
Description: What does a recovery environment look like for a hospital? Many people use terms like clean room to describe the whole thing, but in this clip from the latest episode of Building Cyber Resilience: A Healthcare Leader’s Guide Jeremy Cathey points out th...

Rubrik

09/01/2026

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TL;DR

The term 'clean room' is widely misused as a catch-all for Isolated Recovery Environments (IREs), creating confusion during cyber incidents.
A properly structured IRE requires three distinct zones: a forensic zone for security teams, a staging zone for IT testing, and a secure production zone for end users.
Separating these zones allows security investigations and operational recovery to run in parallel, reducing overall downtime during a ransomware or cyber event.

Summary

In this short clip from Rubrik's Building Cyber Resilience: A Healthcare Leader's Guide series, Jeremy Cathey addresses widespread confusion around Isolated Recovery Environment (IRE) terminology in the healthcare IT sector. While "clean room" is commonly used as a catch-all phrase, Cathey argues that a properly structured IRE actually consists of three distinct zones, each serving a different team and purpose during a cyber incident. The first zone is the forensic or security zone — a clean environment where security teams can conduct their investigation and damage assessment without interference. The second is the staging or operations zone, a sandbox where IT teams can recover, test, and validate applications before exposing them to users. The third is a secure production zone where staff can resume work under controlled access. By separating these zones, security investigations and operational recovery can proceed simultaneously, preventing teams from blocking each other during a crisis — a critical capability for hospitals where downtime directly impacts patient care.

Chapters

0:00 - Industry Terminology Confusion
0:14 - Defining the Three IRE Zones
0:37 - Staging and Production Zones

Key Quotes

0:03 "One of the biggest issues that we're seeing in the industry right now is a significant amount of confusion on understanding the terminology."
0:06 "When we look at IRE, clean room tends to be almost universally used as the umbrella term."
0:18 "What I really have are three separate sub-components, or zones, if you will, of an IRE, because I have different scenarios and different tasks and procedures that my teams need to use inside of that isolated recovery environment."

FAQ

What is the difference between a clean room and an Isolated Recovery Environment (IRE)?

According to Jeremy Cathey, 'clean room' is commonly used as an umbrella term for the entire recovery environment, but it technically refers to just one component — the forensic zone where security teams investigate the incident. A full IRE includes two additional zones: a staging zone for IT testing and a secure production zone for user access.

Why does separating IRE zones matter during a cyber incident?

Separating the zones allows different teams to work simultaneously without interfering with each other. Security can conduct forensics while IT validates recovered systems and staff begin resuming operations — reducing total downtime and avoiding workflow conflicts during a crisis.

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TL;DR

Summary

Chapters

Key Quotes

FAQ

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