Acronis has released the findings of its second annual Cyber Protection Week survey, which uncovered a dangerous disconnect between the need for organisations to keep their data protected and the ineffective investments they’ve made trying to reach that goal.
While 2020 saw companies purchase new systems to enable and secure remote workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, those investments are not paying off. The global survey discovered that 80% of companies now run as many as 10 solutions simultaneously for their data protection and cybersecurity needs – yet more than half of those organisations suffered unexpected downtime last year because of data loss.
The findings from Acronis’ annual survey, which polled 4,400 IT users and professionals in 22 countries across six continents, dispel the myth that simply adding more solutions will solve cybersecurity and data protection challenges. Not only does investing in more solutions not deliver more protection, in many cases trying to manage protection across multiple solutions creates greater complexity and less visibility for the IT team, which increases risk.
“This year’s Cyber Protection Week survey clearly illustrates that more solutions do not deliver greater protection, as using separate tools to address individual types of exposure is complicated, inefficient, and costly,” said Serguei “SB” Beloussov, Founder and CEO of Acronis. “These findings confirm our belief that the smarter approach is cyber protection, which unifies data protection, cybersecurity, and endpoint management in one.”
Knowledge gap contributes to IT challenges
Complicating matters, there is a significant gap in awareness among users and IT professionals of what IT and cybersecurity capabilities are available to them, which can cause them to lose valuable time, money, and security.
For anyone using multiple solutions to solve their IT and cybersecurity needs, the lack of transparency into such information only gets worse. Not only must they remember which solution provides a particular data point, they are constantly switching between consoles to find the details they need – leading to inefficiencies and missed insights.
Acronis has long recognised the cost, efficiency, and security challenges that arise from using multiple solutions, which is why the company pioneered the field of cyber protection, integrating cutting-edge cybersecurity, best-of-breed backup, and endpoint management in a single solution. Managed service providers can build their IT services on Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, while businesses can gain the same unified capabilities with the company’s on-premises solution, Acronis Cyber Protect 15.
Individuals’ lax approach to protection
The survey also revealed a staggeringly lax approach to data protection among IT users.
The efforts of individuals to protect their data aren’t keeping pace with threats, which is likely due to false assumptions (such as believing Microsoft 365 backs up their data) or a reliance on automatic solutions.
Individual IT users can gain the same integrated cyber protection as MSPs and IT professionals with Acronis True Image 2021, the first personal cyber protection solution that unites AI-enhanced anti-malware and award-winning backup in one.
Action items for Cyber Protection Week
The challenges of protecting and securing data, applications, and systems will continue to grow in the post-pandemic world. To ensure that data is protected, Acronis recommends five simple steps: