Acronis®, Inc. (https://www.acronis.com), a
provider of affordable, scalable storage management and disaster
recovery software,
is urging IT managers to merge their security policies with
their backup and recovery procedures in the wake of the increasing
threat of zero-day attacks.
As hackers get smarter, the strength of threats such as zero-day
attacks (essentially when unknown or unpatched vulnerability is
exploited in the window between a vendor identifying a virus and
when the vendor patch is issued) means that security vendors are
struggling to offer adequate protection to companies meaning
business critical applications, such as ERP and database servers,
are vulnerable to downtime.
The speed and complexity of such threats means that the
parameters of security are shifting outside of its traditional
realm. As such, Acronis is strongly advising companies to consider
how they backup and recover their files, operating systems and
applications in tandem with their security policies. In essence,
companies need to have the ability to roll back to an uninfected
state to guarantee security even when anti-virus systems are
defeated, malware finds its way on to PCs or servers, or other
systems are otherwise compromised.
"Many IT managers presume that their chosen security vendor will
protect their systems against all threats, but unfortunately, by
the time antivirus and security companies provide a patch for a
security breach, it is often too late," said Jason Donahue, CEO of
Acronis. "If they are affected by a zero-day attack, IT managers
need to be able to roll their systems back to the last known good
state before the attack took place. This is a fundamental part of
any backup and recovery strategy, and one that should be tightly
integrated within a company's broader security policy to ensure
business as usual, as quickly as possible."
Acronis offers these tips to IT managers:
- Be prepared for a zero-day attack by employing a backup and recovery approach that allows you to roll back to the last know functional state before your systems become corrupt
- Take a holistic approach and consider your backup and recovery policy as an extension of your existing security strategy
- Be prepared to restore affected servers to any available hardware, not just back to the affected servers; that means you need to the ability to restore to different hardware as well
- It's all too easy to forget the recovery aspect of backup and recovery software. In fact, 89 per cent of companies only test their disaster recovery systems once a year or less. Speak to your IT service provider, systems integrator or other IT consultant to see how they can help you recover if you fall victim to a zero-day attack.
About Acronis:
Acronis is a leader in AI-native cyber protection, unifying data protection, cybersecurity, IT operations and hybrid infrastructure to deliver business continuity, security and compliance with less cost and complexity. More than 21,000 service providers trust Acronis to protect over 750,000 businesses in 150 countries. Acronis is headquartered in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. For more information, visit www.acronis.com.