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DISASTER_RECOVERY.md
Version: 1.0 Project: CeloHT Recovery Model: Layered Recovery
This document defines how CeloHT should respond to major infrastructure, application, database, deployment, security, or integration failures.
The objective is to restore critical services while protecting users, funds, data, and project integrity.
CeloHT may experience:
- Application outage
- API outage
- Database failure
- Deployment failure
- Domain failure
- CI/CD compromise
- Cloud infrastructure outage
- RPC outage
- Smart-contract incident
- Security breach
- Credential compromise
- Data corruption
- Loss of operational access
INCIDENT
│
▼
DETECT
│
▼
TRIAGE
│
┌─────────┼─────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼
App Database Blockchain
Issue Issue Issue
│ │ │
└─────────┼─────────┘
▼
CONTAINMENT
│
▼
RECOVERY
│
▼
VALIDATION
│
▼
MONITORING
│
▼
POST-INCIDENT
Recovery priority should generally be:
- Protect user funds
- Protect credentials
- Stop active attacks
- Restore critical infrastructure
- Restore application services
- Restore data
- Restore non-critical features
- Complete post-incident analysis
Examples:
- Treasury compromise
- Major smart-contract vulnerability
- Production credentials compromised
- Complete application compromise
Examples:
- Major API outage
- Database outage
- Significant user-data exposure
- Production deployment failure
Examples:
- Non-critical service failure
- Limited feature outage
- Performance degradation
Examples:
- Minor documentation or interface issue
- Non-critical monitoring problem
For each production service, the project should eventually define:
Recovery Time Objective
Maximum acceptable time to restore service.
Recovery Point Objective
Maximum acceptable amount of data loss.
These values should be defined according to the criticality of each service.
If the frontend fails:
Failure
│
▼
Identify Deployment
│
▼
Inspect Logs
│
▼
Rollback / Fix
│
▼
Redeploy
│
▼
Health Check
If the API fails:
- Confirm service availability.
- Inspect logs.
- Check dependencies.
- Check database connectivity.
- Check blockchain/RPC connectivity.
- Roll back or deploy a fix.
- Verify endpoints.
- Monitor recovery.
Database Failure
│
▼
Stop Unsafe Writes
│
▼
Assess Damage
│
▼
Select Backup
│
▼
Restore
│
▼
Validate Integrity
│
▼
Reconnect Application
│
▼
Monitor
Backups must be tested periodically.
If corruption is suspected:
- Stop affected operations where necessary.
- Preserve evidence.
- Identify last known-good backup.
- Restore into an isolated environment.
- Validate records.
- Compare critical application data.
- Restore production.
- Monitor.
If a credential is compromised:
Compromise Detected
│
▼
Revoke Credential
│
▼
Rotate Secret
│
▼
Review Access Logs
│
▼
Identify Impact
│
▼
Restore Secure Configuration
Compromised credentials must not be trusted again simply because the attacker is no longer visible.
If the CI/CD system is compromised:
- Stop automated deployments.
- Revoke suspicious credentials.
- Review workflow changes.
- Review recent commits.
- Review deployment history.
- Rotate affected secrets.
- Validate production artifacts.
- Restore trusted pipeline configuration.
- Resume deployments after verification.
If the production domain is compromised:
- Secure registrar access.
- Revoke unauthorized sessions.
- Restore DNS configuration.
- Verify certificates.
- Inspect application integrity.
- Warn users if malicious content was served.
- Monitor DNS propagation.
If the primary blockchain RPC becomes unavailable:
Application
│
▼
RPC Failure
│
▼
Health Check
│
▼
Secondary RPC
│
▼
Celo Network
If no reliable RPC is available, blockchain-dependent actions should fail safely rather than pretending they succeeded.
Smart-contract incidents require special handling.
Potential response:
Contract Alert
│
▼
Assess Exploit
│
▼
Determine Exposure
│
▼
Restrict Functionality
│
▼
Protect Remaining Funds
│
▼
Investigate
│
▼
Recovery / Migration
The exact response depends on contract capabilities.
Immutable contracts may not permit conventional rollback.
If treasury security is threatened:
- Suspend non-essential treasury operations.
- Confirm the incident.
- Review authorized signers.
- Secure compromised accounts.
- Preserve transaction evidence.
- Determine remaining exposure.
- Activate governance/emergency procedures.
- Communicate with relevant stakeholders.
- Document the incident.
If sensitive application data is exposed:
- Identify affected system.
- Contain the breach.
- Determine affected records.
- Revoke compromised credentials.
- Patch the vulnerability.
- Preserve evidence.
- Assess notification obligations.
- Monitor for continued abuse.
- Document lessons learned.
Critical backups should include, where applicable:
- Database backups
- Infrastructure configuration
- Deployment configuration
- Documentation
- Critical application configuration
Source code should remain recoverable from version control.
A backup is not considered reliable merely because it completed successfully.
Recovery testing should verify:
- Backup integrity
- Restore process
- Application compatibility
- Data consistency
- Required credentials
- Recovery time
Recovery procedures should be tested periodically.
Possible exercises:
- Database restoration
- Application rollback
- Credential rotation
- RPC failover
- Infrastructure redeployment
- Incident-response simulation
During major incidents, communication should be:
- Accurate
- Timely
- Verified
- Consistent
Do not speculate publicly about an incident before facts are established.
After a significant incident:
Incident
│
▼
Recovery
│
▼
Root Cause Analysis
│
▼
Control Improvements
│
▼
Documentation Update
│
▼
Security Testing
The objective is to prevent recurrence.
- Threat contained
- Credentials secured
- Logs preserved
- Vulnerability identified
- Application restored
- API restored
- Database restored
- Domain verified
- Monitoring operational
- RPC functioning
- Contracts verified
- Treasury reviewed
- Transaction integrity confirmed
- Users informed where necessary
- Incident documented
- Root cause identified
- Corrective actions assigned
CeloHT disaster recovery follows:
- Protect funds first.
- Contain before restoring.
- Never destroy evidence unnecessarily.
- Restore from trusted sources.
- Validate before declaring recovery.
- Monitor after recovery.
- Document every major incident.
- Improve controls after every significant failure.
Document: Disaster Recovery Plan Version: 1.0 Project: CeloHT Recovery Model: Layered Recovery
© 2026 CeloHT - Open Source. Global Impact. Licensed under Apache.