James Slaby

James Slaby

James Slaby

Latest stories from James Slaby

February 22, 2018 — 4 min read

Backups and the GDPR “right to be forgotten”: What to expect

February 22, 2018 — 4 min read

Backups and the GDPR “right to be forgotten”: What to expect

(Part 1 of 2) The arrival of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is imminent: the official cutover date is 25 May 2018. In previous blog posts, we’ve explained the majority of its new obligations and roles, but one question requires special attention: the so-called “right to be forgotten”. We'll take a look at what that means for your backup files.

May 14, 2017 — 4 min read

WannaCry Ransomware Just Became a Global Pandemic. Only Acronis Has the Vaccine

May 14, 2017 — 4 min read

WannaCry Ransomware Just Became a Global Pandemic. Only Acronis Has the Vaccine

The massive worldwide wave of ransomware attacks of May 12, 2017, instantly turned a once relatively obscure malware threat into screaming headline news and an urgent security concern for global leaders. The so-called WannaCry variant of ransomware, weaponized into deadly virulence with an exploit stolen from the USA’s National Security Agency, exploded through 99 countries, bringing down hospitals in the UK and telecoms operations in Spain. If the threat of ransomware wasn’t on your radar yesterday, it is today. And if you are scrambling for answers, Acronis already offers the single best defense against ransomware attacks, including WannaCry: Acronis Backup 12.5 with Active Protection™, which proactively exterminates ransomware and automatically, instantly restores any damaged data.

October 24, 2016 — 3 min read

Lessons in Beating Ransomware From a Jedi Master

October 24, 2016 — 3 min read

Lessons in Beating Ransomware From a Jedi Master

Luke Skywalker: I'm not afraid! Yoda: Ehh. You will be. You will be. (The Empire Strikes Back) If you’re not yet worried about ransomware, wait a little while. Given the meteoric rise of this new malware threat, it is inevitable that you or someone you know will suffer from an attack that can disrupt your business for days and costs thousands of dollars to mitigate. If you don’t know anything about the subject, you’re in decent company: a recent study showed that 60% of US office workers have no idea what ransomware is or how much of a threat it poses to businesses.

October 18, 2016 — 4 min read

Service Providers: Fight Ransomware, Become a Superhero to Your Customers

October 18, 2016 — 4 min read

Service Providers: Fight Ransomware, Become a Superhero to Your Customers

We’ve spend the last few weeks examining various aspects of ransomware, a type of malware that encrypts computer hard drives and demands an online ransom of hundreds or thousands of dollars for the decryption key, without which users can never access their files again. In both its effectiveness and its astonishingly rapid proliferation, it represents a unique new threat both to consumers and businesses

October 07, 2016 — 4 min read

There Are Many Ways to Repel Ransomware, Only One Way to Defeat It

October 07, 2016 — 4 min read

There Are Many Ways to Repel Ransomware, Only One Way to Defeat It

In our continuing series on the new malware menace known as ransomware, we’ve looked what it’s like to suffer a ransomware attack, why it’s become a weapon of choice for online criminals (they’re making gobs of money off it), and why it has grown so quickly (hackers are copying the SaaS industry’s highly-leveraged distribution model). Given how likely it is that you or someone you know will get hit by a ransomware attack in the coming months, now might be a good time to shore up your anti-ransomware defenses.

September 29, 2016 — 3 min read

Ransomware by Itself Is Scary. Ransomware-As-A-Service Is Much Worse

September 29, 2016 — 3 min read

Ransomware by Itself Is Scary. Ransomware-As-A-Service Is Much Worse

Ransomware gangsters steal a page from the legit software industry’s distribution playbook Ransomware has emerged as the most prolific new malware threat of the 21st century, with online criminals expecting to reap a billion dollars from victims from it in 2016. We have talked here about how ransomware works (it infects your PC, server or phone, encrypts your files, and demands an online payment in return for the decryption key) and why so many criminals are getting into the ransomware business (it’s an extremely profitable racket). We expect the ransomware epidemic to continue to mushroom in size, becoming a multi-billion dollar business in 2017, making it inevitable that you or someone you know has to pay a hefty ransom or lose their files forever. How is this crooked business growing so quickly, despite the efforts of law enforcement and the IT security industry to thwart it?

September 26, 2016 — 4 min read

Ransomware Is the Bootleg Liquor of the 21st Century

September 26, 2016 — 4 min read

Ransomware Is the Bootleg Liquor of the 21st Century

Criminals are swarming to the ransomware business — and targeting you — because it’s highly profitable. Last week, we offered a high-level overview of the malware menace known as ransomware: what it’s like to be victimized by a ransomware attack (it’s no fun to discover that your hard drive has been encrypted by a malicious program), how the criminals extort money from businesses and consumers (if you don’t pay an online ransom, you never get your files back), and how big this illegal business has become (ransomware criminals will extort $1B from victims in 2016, says the FBI).