Scan for Malware – Veritas NetBackup
Malware and cybersecurity are hot topics for technology leaders these days. Veritas NetBackup is a backup and recovery web application that allows users to automatically backup their vital data, which is available to restore when an issue arises with their files.
Veritas added the ability to scan for malware to NetBackup, to allow users to scan their backups for malware before restoring backups to machines, allowing users to determine if the backup are infected with malware status prior to restoring files.
Case Study
BACKGROUND
Previously, users needed to use a separate application to scan their files for malware - as preventative or after an attack. With this new feature, users can scan the recent backups to find out where the last clean copy of their files are in the backups.
PROBLEM
Engineering had designed a process where users could use the malware scanner that Veritas had licensed for scanning within the application. In addition, Veritas was adding the capability to use other popular scanning applications that the customers might own. Users needed to be able to select and scan backup for malware, along with the full workflow, and present those results to the users. In addition, Veritas wanted to present the scanning results to users during the recovery process and allow users to initiate a malware scan in the recovery flow.
MY PROCESS
I worked closely with the Product Manager and engineering to understand the technical plan for implenting the new feature. I suggested improvements to make the flow and presentation of information more user-centric rather engineering-driven. I created wireframes and went through rounds of feedback to get a consensus between the user interface and the technology used for this feature. The set of fields to scan were derived from an older interface.
Once I had a good set of mockups in place, I created prototypes and worked with a researcher to design a usability study for this feature. Though the users were very happy to see the ability to scan for malware in the application, during usability studies for the first release, we learned a lot from users, including some button naming glitches that were corrected. We also learned about their needs for automation, bulk scanning and other requests.
This project was lauched and improved upon over the course of several releases, where we incorporated many of the requests from users.
Deliverables:
User Workflow Diagram
Mockups/Prototype
Usability Study
SOLUTION
Users can scan their backup for malware, and view the scan results and select the best backup image to user for recovery.
This first flow provides the ability to view the malware scan status of a specific VMware machine during the recovery flow.
Step one: In the list of VMs, using the menu for the VM that needs recovery, choose the “Recover” from the menu.
Step two: View the list of recent backups for that VMware machine, which includes the malware scan status (hopefully there is one that is “Not Infected.")
If a “Not infected” image is not available, or if all the images need to be scanned, the most recent backups can be scanned for malware using the flow in the next section.
To scroll through the wireframes, click the arrow on the right side of the image, or select the thumbnails under the image.
View Malware Scan Status in the Recovery Flow
Initiate Malware Scan Prior to Recovery
This second flow provides the user ability to scan the most recent backups of a specific VMware machine from the list of VMware machines.
Step one: In the list of VMs, using the menu for the VM that needs to be scanned, choose the “Scan for malware” from the menu.
Step two: Select the date range and options from the Malware scan form.
Step three: After viewing the success message, click the “View scan results” button.
Step four: View the scan results list.
Step five: Expand the list of scans for the specific VMware machine
Step: six: View the “child” scans for the VM machine.
Step seven: View only the child scans for this specific VM machine.
To scroll through the wireframes, click the arrow on the right side of the image, or select the thumbnails under the image.
Scanning Backups in Bulk
This third flow provides the user ability to scan the most recent backups of a specific VMware machine from the list of VMware machines.
Step one: On the Malware detection results page, click the “Scan for malware” button.
Step two: View the Scan for malware form.
Step three: In the Scan for malware form, choose a method a search for the backup images you want to scan, and click “Search.”
Step four: Select the backup image search options in the form.
Step five: In the image search results area, select the backup images you want to scan.
Step: six: Click “Scan for malware” to initiate the scanning.
Step seven: Click “View scan results” to return to the Malware detection page to view the malware scanning results.
To scroll through the wireframes, click the arrow on the right side of the image, or select the thumbnails under the image.
Screenshot of Actual User Interface
This is how the Scan for Malware form was implemented in the web-based application.
