Understanding Modern Cyber Protection: What You Need to Know

From finance to manufacturing, transportation to healthcare, digital advances have disrupted and reinvented nearly every industry that drives the global economy. The modern world is more dependent upon data than at any time in history. That means safeguarding data – and the applications and systems that rely on data – is vital for individuals and organizations alike.

Unfortunately, traditional backup and cybersecurity solutions are no longer enough because they cannot keep up with today’s threats.

• Data volumes are doubling every two years, creating challenges of how to store and secure it – not to mention the cost of that storage.
• At the same time, cybercriminals are industrializing their malware attacks using greater computing power and artificial intelligence (AI), increasing the effectiveness of their zero-day attacks.

Given these new realities, the world needs modern solutions that can protect data, applications, and systems.

Acronis has been advocating a new approach called cyber protection, which combines the best of data protection with innovative approaches to cybersecurity, while incorporating technologies that ensure the privacy and authenticity of data. This unique approach has been embraced by industry observers like IDC, who have acknowledged cyber protection as the new IT discipline.

We’ve prepared a brief SlideShare that explains the need for modern cyber protection. Let’s quickly explore the basics of cyber protection.

The Cyber Protection Revolution from Acronis

The potential for data loss, corruption, theft, and manipulation has never been greater. The speed with which new cybersecurity threats are created, the complexity of how and where data is consumed, and the costs associated with protecting and storing data have made traditional data protection and cybersecurity approaches obsolete.

Individuals and organizations that continue to rely on legacy IT approaches are putting themselves, their businesses, and even their careers at risk. They need solutions that offer a holistic approach to keeping their data, applications, and systems protected – today and in the future.

Acronis’ unique approach involves developing modern solutions that address the Five Vectors of Cyber Protection (also known by the acronym SAPAS).

Safety: Ensure that a reliable copy of your data is always available

Accessibility: Make your data easily available from anywhere at any time

Privacy: Control who has visibility and access to your data

Authenticity: Have undeniable proof a copy of your data is an exact replica of the original

Security: Protect your data, applications, and systems against malicious threats

To cover all Five Vectors, there are challenges. While each of these vectors is important, they often compete with one another. Locking a hard drive inside a vault guarantees the data’s safety and privacy, for example, but makes the data inaccessible and therefore useless from a practical standpoint.

In response, someone might try deploying a variety of products and services that are each designed to cover a particular vector. Unfortunately, even if an individual point solution might be terrific, using a patchwork approach to your protection creates gaps in your defenses. 

For truly effective cyber protection, an integrated solution that can balance these competing priorities helps ensure you are ready to face any challenge or threat, which Acronis describes as being CyberFit.

The importance of being CyberFit cannot be underestimated. For individuals, the impact of data loss can be more than just an inconvenience. They lose irreplaceable photos, videos, and important documents.

For organizations, the stakes can be much higher as their very existence can be threatened.

The most recent research shows that ransomware attacks against businesses occur every 14 seconds. Yet 7 out of 10 businesses admit they are not prepared to respond to a cyberattack. The impact of lost productivity and unexpected downtime is why top executives are being held responsible for their company’s IT posture – and increasingly lose their jobs if it’s is judged to be lacking.

Industry analysts like IDC have examined Acronis’ unique cyber protection approach, and they are recognizing the value. In a recent whitepaper, IDC recommended organizations should adopt the approach as part of their digital transformation by:

• Creating a cyber protection center of excellence that focuses on data security and availability;
• Embracing the strategy by integrating data protection, disaster recovery (DR), and data security;
• Designing cyber protection into infrastructure architectures, not as add-ons;
• And leveraging automation and AI/machine learning to better respond to cyberthreats.

To read the full whitepaper from IDC, you can download it here.

The core mission of Acronis is to protect all data, applications, and systems. Doing that successfully means staying at the cutting-edge of new strategies and technologies, which is why Acronis has earned its reputation as an industry innovator.

By leading the new IT discipline of cyber protection, Acronis is preparing individuals, businesses, and the service providers who help them with modern solutions that address the ever-evolving threats users face today and into the future.

To read more about Acronis’ approach to cyber protection, visit acronis.com/en-us/cyber-protection.