With technology, things are always changing. So as a global leader in cyber protection and hybrid cloud solutions, Acronis has to continuously invest in research and development (R&D) to ensure we’re providing customers with the best protection for their data, apps and systems using cutting-edge technologies. That innovative philosophy pays tremendous dividends in the effectiveness of our solutions. Developing those technologies also requires us to find the best and brightest software engineers, scientists and security experts wherever they may be. That is why we have a network of R&D centers located around the world, operating in Asia, Europe and America. Such a global presence not only allows us to develop cyber protection, artificial intelligence, and blockchain-based technologies around the clock, it puts us closer to the best talent around the world. Now that R&D network is even larger since we just opened our new European office and R&D center in Sofia, Bulgaria. The strategic location will not only help us better serve our European-based customers, but the central location enables us to more easily draw on the well-educated and dedicated technical talent pool the continent offers.

Microsoft recently made Update 1809 available (also called Redstone 5) and no sooner were users installing the update than they were making a terrible discovery. The update is deleting photos and documents from the users’ systems. To be clear, the update is not moving these files to another partition or compressing them – it’s erasing them from the system – just as an earlier Windows 10 upgrade generated horror stories of people who lost everything – from precious photos to important documents to irreplaceable videos.

https://www.acronis.com/en-us/cyber-protection/ The bustling Port of San Diego is recovering from a ransomware attack that hit on Tuesday, September 25, striking the administrative computer systems. The FBI and U.S. Department of Homeland Security are currently on-site investigating the ransomware further. And while the Port remains open to the public and shipping traffic is unaffected, certain systems are being shut down as a precaution while Port officials develop and implement their recovery plan. The incident marks the second cyberattack on an international port this week, as the Port of Barcelona was forced to fall back on contingency plans in response to an attack on their servers. Yet these are just two of the latest examples in a troubling epidemic of cybercrimes that target transportation, municipal, and governmental infrastructure.

How well protected is your company’s data? If you’re like the majority of IT professionals, probably not well enough. That’s not our opinion, but rather the honest answer from 62 percent of IT professionals from around the globe who reported that their security infrastructure has gaps that would allow attackers to penetrate their defenses. That revelation is just one of the troubling findings from the Ponemon Institute’s recent report on the modern IT security gap and how artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) could help.