We’ve blogged about RanSim before: it’s a nice tool from KnowBe4, a security awareness training company that employs the famous former hacker, Kevin Mitnick. They help people learn about IT security and prepare for various security threats. RanSim originally served as a ransomware simulator – allowing users to see if their systems were protected against ransomware attacks without the risk of the real thing. Recently, KnowBe4 updated RanSim so that it also emulates cryptojackers – the latest, fast-growing malware threat that targets computers and mobile devices to hijack system resources to secretly mine cryptocurrency – and Acronis' cyber protection technology performed extremely well.

As 2018 comes to a close, the Acronis Foundation has completed construction on a new school in the remote village of Prei Changha, Cambodia, near the border of Thailand. This is the third school built by the Foundation’s Schools Initiative in 2018 – along with schools in Myanmar and Tanzania – which illustrates the organization’s commitment to creating, spreading, and protecting knowledge around the world.

It’s never been easier for businesses to take advantage of the data security and other benefits the cloud delivers. Indeed, today the security, cost-effectiveness and easy scalability of the cloud compels companies to seek out and leverage solutions – which is driving tremendous growth in data center usage. In fact, the seventh annual Cisco Global Cloud Index report projects that by 2021, 94 percent of workloads and compute instances will be processed by cloud data centers and 73 percent of those instances will be in public cloud data centers. When it comes to cloud storage, the landscape is nuanced. Companies have different requirements – from how much businesses need, to where data is stored, and beyond – which makes a one-size-fits-all option quite challenging. To meet varying needs, business growth requires data-storage choice. The good news is that delivering such choice means business opportunities for IT service providers, provided they have the right partnership in place.

The season of giving is upon us again! Across the country, people are making their annual trek through a winter wonderland to the slightly-less wonderful shopping malls of America. With your friends and family spending more time than ever interacting with digital media, now's the time to give some gadgets and software that will make their digital world better, faster, and safer in the year to come. Here are 10 tech gifts to help you spread holiday cheer and cyber protection.