What’s a live ransomware attack look like? Take a look

If you are an IT leader for a small- to midmarket-sized business, you have likely had your eye on the threat of ransomware for a few years. But recent high-profile ransomware attacks such as the Colonial Pipeline breach that disrupted U.S. fuel supplies and the JBS SA attack that threatened the same to American and Australian retail meat supply chains have brought the threat back to everyone’s attention, including your management.

When malware threatens to put a damper on the upcoming family road trip or backyard barbecue, suddenly everyone wants to know what you are doing about it.

That makes this month an opportune moment to upgrade your understanding of how ransomware attacks work and revisit your strategies for protecting your company’s data and uptime against this most destructive and increasingly widespread malware threat.

Acronis is giving you two excellent chances to do just that.

To help business IT managers understand the threat they are up against – and how to combat it – Acronis has put together a pair of virtual conferences for audiences on both sides of the Atlantic:

• The event for the Americas takes place on Wednesday, June 9, 2021 starting at 1:00 p.m. EDT.
• For Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, attendees can join on Wednesday 16 June 2021 starting at 15:00 CEST.

The centerpiece of these events will be the presentation of a live ransomware attack in progress led by Topher Tebow, senior cybersecurity researcher at Acronis. In addition to showing how the threat progresses, he’ll add his expert analysis that’s been built on six years working as a malware researcher and another seven years in IT support and operations roles.

Why show a live attack? The rationale is simple: the more you know about your adversary’s methods from the inside, the better you can anticipate and build plans to detect and thwart them. But these virtual conferences will go well beyond a live ransomware attack demonstration.

Candid Wüest, VP of cyber protection research at Acronis, will examine the latest trends in the ransomware landscape, including recent changes to the threat environment that cybercriminals have been exploiting so effectively, and their evolving tactics to put pressure on victims to pay.

Candid brings incredible experience to his current role researching threat trends and comprehensive protection methods, having previously spent 16 years as the tech lead for Symantec’s global security response team. He is a widely published author, a media favorite on security topics, a frequent speaker at major conferences like security conferences like RSA and AREA 41, and an advisor to the Swiss federal government on cyber risks.

Candid will then join a panel discussion with two more noted cybersecurity experts, including:

• Graham Cluley, host of the wildly popular and highly entertaining Smashing Security podcast. (You may also know his podcast co-host, Carole Theriault, who has been a featured speaker at the Acronis Global Cyber Summit.) As a long-established authority on cybercrime, Graham also writes a widely followed security blog and does cybersecurity research and consulting for businesses all over the world.
• Dylan Pollock, senior network engineer at championship-winning NASCAR racing team Hendricks Motorsports, will join the panel for the Americas event. He brings more than 10 years of experience in a variety of technical roles to a professional sport that ranks among the world’s most sophisticated in tech innovation. The absolute criticality and huge volumes of data used by NASCAR teams – both on and off the track – provide Dylan with unique insights into protection strategies against data theft, loss and downtime from cyberattacks, hardware failure and other threats. (Hendricks also employees a unique application of Acronis machine intelligence technology to provide it a winning race-day edge.)
• James Grove, head of IT for the Southampton FC of the Premier League, will join the panel for the Europe, Middle East, and Africa session. James has more than 16 years of industry experience, including 10 years in senior leadership roles at Navitas, where he ran its UK and European business technology partnerships and headed its global IT services management operation. James brings innovative perspectives from football at the Premier League level, another professional sport that relies intensively on vast volumes of data across its operations to remain competitive, with the requisite daunting cybersecurity and data protection challenges.

This panel of veteran tech professionals will dig into a variety of practical considerations for fighting ransomware, building a checklist that attendees can use to build their own ransomware detection, mitigation and response strategies. They will wrap by taking live questions from the audience.

The event will conclude with a very brief demonstration of Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, which managed service providers and VARs use to deliver award-winning cyber protection for businesses against ransomware and other costly, urgent threats to data integrity and uptime.

The ability to defend one’s business successfully against ransomware will be a career maker for many IT professionals in the coming years. In less than an hour, this live anatomy of a ransomware attack will give you a rare perspective into the tactics used by ransomware gangsters and even more formidable state actors. Further, you will leave with the practical basis of your own up-to-the-minute strategy to keep them from pillaging your business.

Registration is still open, so reserve your spot by signing up today. To register:

• Americas: Wednesday, June 9, 2021 starting at 1:00 p.m. EDT.
• Europe, the Middle East, and Africa: Wednesday 16 June 2021 starting at 15:00 CEST.