If your organization is preparing for a cyber security audit, you will want to read on to learn about best practices to optimize the value of the audit. External audits performed by third parties, can be expensive so it is best to be as prepared as possible by following these best practices.

While traditional malware protection relies on a classical signature-based approach, advanced malware protection utilizes a multi-layered approach that incorporates artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and behavioral detection. Behavioral detection is a technique that determines whether an entity will attack by observing its behavior. Advanced malware protection solutions also use whitelisting or allowlisting – a technique that allows approved entities – and blocklisting – a list of entities that should be blocked.

With the launch of Acronis Cyber Protect in 2020, we began to compete in other sectors above and beyond backup and recovery. With integrated anti-malware, vulnerability assessments, and URL filtering, Acronis started looking more like an endpoint protection solution – and it seems the analyst community took notice. Most notably, the market research firm Canalys recently began including Acronis in their Endpoint Security Vendor Performance Index, and our unified solutions performed very well.

Small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) struggled through a fretful year of sudden pandemic-driven changes: employees forced to work from home, sensitive data abruptly moved to cloud-based SaaS applications, and a baffling array of new cyberthreats – including 350,000 new malware threats being identified every day and a 400% increase in cybercrime last year being reported by the FBI. For 2021, that last challenge is particularly daunting: few SMBs are capable of keeping pace with a daily barrage of ransomware attacks, tech supply-chain incursions like the SolarWinds breach, and severe vulnerabilities like Microsoft’s recent Exchange Server fiasco – especially in light of their paltry tech budgets and headcount. SMBs are desperate to outsource these problems, and that presents a huge opportunity for MSPs willing to step up and help.