It’s no exaggeration to say that digital disruption has reshaped and reinvented nearly every major industry over the last couple of decades. From finance to healthcare, from manufacturing to transportation — the modern world is more dependent than ever on data. Naturally, safeguarding that data — and the organizations that rely on it — is absolutely vital. Now in its 17th year, National Cybersecurity Awareness Month is an initiative led by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, intended to raise awareness about cyberthreats and the strategies we can take to protect our systems and sensitive data. October 2020 also marks the ninth year of European Cybersecurity Month — the European Union’s annual campaign dedicated to promoting cybersecurity and sharing best practices around the topic of staying protected online.

The Acronis Cyber Global Summit 2020 is quickly approaching. As the excitement builds for what is sure to be an informative and inspiring three days, we asked a few of the sports and cyber protection leaders who will be joining us what they’re most looking forward to this year, why they’re participating, and how Acronis cyber protection solutions have helped their organizations get through the pandemic successfully.

Selling security is hard enough when you can sit across from a prospect, but the new realities of lockdown and social distancing create even more roadblocks. How can managed service providers (MSPs) who want to add cybersecurity services to their offering get started in today’s virtual business world? Recently, Acronis Chief Channel Evangelist Amy Luby sat down (virtually) with Erick Simpson, co-founder of one of the first pure-play MSPs in the industry and the creator of the MSP Mastered methodology, to get his insights into how MSPs can successfully sell security in a virtual environment.

Even when world-class systems are in place and teams are communicating and working toward the same goal, mistakes can happen. In 2019, the Starliner spacecraft missed its rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS), despite having teams and technologies from NASA, SpaceX, and Boeing working together in an environment of cooperation and openness – and Boeing having spent $1.5 billion to get it right. Complexity can cause serious issues. That’s true for space exploration and the efficient use of software. So if things can go bad for teams working together, imagine the costly miscommunications that can happen in an environment that’s developed not by partners but by competitors. Unfortunately, that’s the kind of environment most MSPs rely on today since they’ve built their services on solutions that communicate (often poorly) via APIs.