Why Device SLAs Don’t Protect Data — And What Actually Does

There is growing discussion across the cybersecurity industry about Service-Level Agreements (SLAs)—how fast a system must restore, how long snapshots must be retained, how available storage or backup systems must be, or some sort of “meaningless guarantee” and how often data copies must be replicated. But here’s the uncomfortable truth:

Device-level SLAs do not protect data during a cyber incident. 

They never have, and they never will.

A storage array with 99.999% uptime does not guarantee protection against ransomware. 
A backup retention SLA does not ensure that your snapshots weren’t silently deleted weeks ago.  An immutable snapshot guarantee means nothing if the alert to trigger it never fired. 

Cybersecurity is not a single-system problem. It is an ecosystem problem—one that spans storage, detection, identity, incident response, orchestration, and recovery. So the question becomes:

If device SLAs don’t make data safer, what does?

The answer: 
An end-to-end cyber-resilience SLA that validates every system involved in detecting, containing, protecting, and recovering from cyber threats—continuously.

WHY DEVICE SLAs CAN’T SOLVE CYBER INCIDENTS

Most SLA models come from the uptime era: “Is the device working?” 
But cyber incidents don’t care about device uptime. They exploit:

• Alerting failures 
• Permission misconfigurations 
• Broken SIEM pipelines 
• Delayed SOAR playbooks 
• Slow SOC response 
• Missing snapshots 
• Incomplete audit history 
• Bad recovery workflows 

A vendor telling you their storage array will stay online does nothing to guarantee successful cyber recovery.  Because recovery doesn’t depend on one device.

CYBERSECURITY IS A SYSTEM OF SYSTEMS

A true cyber event touches:
Storage systems 

• Cyberstorage protection (like Superna Data Security Edition) 
• EDR Endpoint
• SIEM 
• SOAR
• Ticketing platforms
• Identity platforms 
• SOC workflows
• Cyber Vaulting infrastructure (Superna Enterprise Airgap) 
• Executive communication processes 

If ANY of these fail—or respond too slowly—you lose data.

This is why device-level SLAs are fundamentally flawed. 
They ignore the reality that cyber resilience is an end-to-end process, not a single product.

WHAT REALLY MAKES DATA SAFER:
AN END-TO-END CYBER PROCESS SLA

An effective cyber SLA must measure, validate, and guarantee the ENTIRE chain:

**Detection → Alert Routing → Incident Response (IR) → Containment → Snapshot Protection → Recovery → Forensics → Executive Communication**

Anything less leaves you exposed.

A proper process-level SLA includes:

• Time-to-detection (seconds) 
• Time-to-alert forwarded to SIEM 
• Time for SOC to begin IR actions 
• Time to snapshot creation and locking 
• Time to containment (identity lockout, host isolation) 
• Time to begin recovery 
• Time to notify leaders, CIO, CEO, legal, PR 
• KPI measurement for every stage 

THE ONLY WAY TO GUARANTEE THE SLA WORKS:
CONTINUOUS SELF-TESTING

Here’s the part most vendors miss: 
SLAs are meaningless unless they are continuously validated.

That’s why I believe in cyber self-testing, such as the Security Guard capability in Superna Data Security Edition.  It simulates a real ransomware-style attack and measures the ENTIRE RESPONSE CHAIN:

• Did the system detect the threat? 
• How fast? (Seconds—on real file systems) 
• Was the alert forwarded to SIEM? 
• Did ticketing fire? 
• Did SOAR respond? 
• Did identity lockout happen? 
• Were snapshots created and protected? 
• Was recovery validated? 
• Did all KPIs meet expectations? 

This produces the industry’s only true Detection KPI and IR KPI.

CYBER READINESS IS NOT A DOCUMENT.
IT IS A DAILY PRACTICE.

When combined with scheduled self-tests (daily, weekly, monthly), organizations gain a true Cyber Readiness Score, capturing:

• Detection performance 
• Alert routing health 
• IR workflow success rate 
• Snapshot/recovery readiness 
• Audit/forensic completeness 
• Executive communication response timing 
• Trendlines for SOC performance and IR maturity 

THE FUTURE:
PROCESS-LEVEL CYBER SLAS + CONTINUOUS TESTING

Device SLAs will remain in the market, but they will not protect organizations from modern attacks.

The path forward is clear:

End-to-end cyber resilience requires end-to-end SLAs AND continuous attack simulation testing.

Not just device uptime. 
Not just snapshot locks. 
Not just a backup. 

It requires the entire ecosystem—storage, detection, SIEM, ticketing, IR, SOC, vaulting, and recovery—to perform flawlessly and measurably.

Organizations that adopt this approach won’t just be “protected on paper.” 
They will be cyber-ready, cyber-proven, and cyber-resilient.

CONCLUSION

If cybersecurity vendors want to make data truly safer, they must stop selling device SLAs and start delivering process SLAs that reflect how cyber incidents actually unfold.

And customers must demand not just promises— 
But proof.

Proof from continuous self-testing. 
Proof from measurable KPIs. 
Proof that detection works, that IR works, that protection works, and that recovery works.

That is the future of cyber resilience.