We have all heard the old Benjamin Franklin adage that says, “Nothing is certain except death and taxes.” If any element of your business is digital, I think we can add cyber threats to that list. Maintaining a secure online presence with an integrated cyber protection approach is crucial.

The Acronis Cyber Protection Operation Centre Report from the end of 2022 revealed that 30.6% of all received emails were spam and 1.6% contained malware or phishing links. 1.6% may not sound like much, but with an average of 347.3 billion emails being sent per day, it amounts to a large number of infected emails. These email-borne attacks target virtually all industries, but the report reveals the main industries targeted were construction, retail, and real estate. The report goes on to inform us that the average cost of a data breach is expected to reach a staggering $5 million in 2023.

All of these are startling facts, made even more so by our increasing digital dependence and hyperconnectivity. Rapid digitalisation has caused industries to change the way they work, with many adopting hybrid and remote working conditions as well as the digital systems to facilitate these changes. New advancements have introduced new cyber vulnerabilities that require integrated approaches to manage.

What is an integrated cyber protection approach?

–   Full Stack Anti-virus

An anti-virus is a piece of software that prevents, detects, and removes malicious software (malware) from a computer or network. Malware includes viruses, worms, trojan horses, spyware, adware, and other potentially harmful software that can corrupt files, steal personal information, or cause other issues. Antivirus software scans the computer’s files, memory, and network traffic for known or suspicious patterns of behaviour, then quarantines or removes any detected malware.

You need full stack antivirus software to prevent, detect, and remove malware from multiple levels of a computer to protect it from data breaches and infection. Web browsing, the recovery process, exploit prevention, URL filtering, anti-malware scans for backed-up data, and an enhanced virus signature database should all be included in your cyber defence strategy.

–   Data backup

Backup your data to ensure it is adequately protected against human error, hardware failure, unintentional data loss, corruption, unauthorised access, virus attacks, power outages, and natural disasters. You will save both time and money. It is best practice to automate backups so that no files are missed and to ensure that backups are performed on a regular basis. The longer the time between data backups, the greater the risk of data loss when recovering data from a backup.

You must also ensure that the data recovery process is quick and simple so that you can recover your entire workload with no data loss and minimal effort.

–   Endpoint protection

Endpoint protection refers to security measures designed to protect individual devices (such as laptops, smartphones, or tablets) that are used to access and store sensitive information either on a network or in the cloud. Endpoint protection is critical with remote work, where the number of devices accessing company information creates several vulnerabilities.

Endpoint protection solutions typically include antivirus software, firewalls, and other security measures to protect against malware, hacking attempts, and other security threats. The goal of endpoint protection is to prevent sensitive information from being compromised, either by malicious actors or by accidental exposure, by securing each endpoint device that is used to access the information.

Protect your online presence with Acronis

To adequately protect your online presence, you need a system that protects your data proactively and engages in continuous research and development to keep up with cyber threat trends. Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud is a comprehensive data security and data protection solution. It is a single integrated console and an infrastructure-free cloud backup system that can provide advanced cyber protection to any endpoint, anywhere.

According to Acronis, “Cyber protection necessitates active threat research and monitoring, as well as adherence to the five vectors of cyber protection, SAPAS: safety, accessibility, privacy, authenticity, and security.”

Some of Acronis’ features include:

• Acronis provides email security with CPU-level analysis, which detects and blocks advanced attacks like APTs and zero-days during the exploit stage by detecting deviations from normal execution flow during runtime.
• Detect malicious URLs based on four leading URL reputation engines in combination with Perception Point’s advanced image recognition technology to validate the legitimacy of URLs.
• You can notarise files of any format and type to ensure files are original and unaltered.
• Continuous data protection ensures users don’t lose work that is in progress, so no data is lost.
• Anti-malware protection for backups. Prevent restoring infected files from backups with built-in malware scanning, including encrypted backups.
• Physical and virtual workload disaster recovery. Reduce downtime by enabling simple, scalable, and efficient disaster recovery of all popular workloads, including Windows and Linux physical servers and virtual machines, major hypervisors, and Microsoft applications.

Eight additional steps you can take to protect your data:

1. Use strong passwords and enable two-factor authentication wherever possible.
2. Keep your software and operating systems up to date.
3. Be cautious when opening emails and attachments from unknown sources.
4. Avoid public Wi-Fi networks and use a virtual private network (VPN) when connecting to the internet.
5. Be careful when downloading and installing software from the internet.
6. Avoid clicking on links or downloading attachments from unsolicited emails or text messages.
7. Educate yourself and others about the latest cyber threats and how to avoid them.
8. Be wary of phishing scams and always verify the sender of any email or message before responding or providing any personal information.

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Chat to the Radical Cloud Solutions team for more information on Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud or to learn more about cybersecurity solutions.