DIGITAL IS IN!

Every industry in every part of the world – from healthcare and education to manufacturing and transportation – is embracing digital transformation with a vengeance. Digitisation in 2020 has gone way beyond the Internet and cloud computing to include cutting-edge technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning, Blockchain and Predictive Analytics.

Now, if there’s thing that drives all these modern-day wonders, it has to be DATA – volumes and volumes of it! Data enables organisations of all types to serve their audience, meet their goals, improve their decision-making outcomes and achieve their purpose, whatever it may be.

Data is now “the world’s most valuable resource” (Source: The Economist)

However, this glut of data also has a downside: data security – specifically a lack of it.

Today, cybercrime has become an ‘industrialised’ concept, with smart cybercriminals using greater technological power to increase the number, scale and effectiveness of their attacks. That’s why data storage and security are huge challenges for organisations everywhere. Given these worrying facts, the world needs modern cyber protection solutions that can protect data, applications and systems while ensuring their integrity, privacy and authenticity. So it’s no surprise that more and more organisations worldwide are embracing the holistic approach to cyber protection, now considered a new IT discipline in its own right  by industry observers like IDC.

What about you?

Are you looking to implement a cyber protection system for your organisation?

Read this article first!

Here we cover the critical elements of a strong cyber protection system. Regardless of which solution you ultimately adopt, if it satisfies these requirements, you should be able to make the most of it and stay ahead of clever criminals out to harm you.

Cyber protection starts with embracing a paradigm shift

In the modern world, the potential for data loss, corruption, theft and manipulation is greater than ever before. New threats are constantly being exposed and increasing the costs of data protection, storage and consumption. In such a situation, legacy IT approaches to data protection and cybersecurity are inadequate at best and dangerous at worst.

Organisations that fail to understand and adapt to these realities risk their financial health, their reputations and even their very survival. That’s why they need holistic, scalable solutions that can not only protect their data, applications, systems today, but in future as well.

Cyber protection has 5 inter-connected ‘vectors’

These modern cyber protection solutions must conform to and meet 5 critical requirements or vectors:

1. Safety: They must ensure the availability of reliable data copies
2. Accessibility: These copies must be easily available from anywhere and at any time
3. Privacy: Only authorised users should be able to control and access this data
4. Authenticity: Copies must be exact replicas of the original. Mistakes can be fatal!
5. Security: All data, applications and systems must be protected from all kinds of malicious threats

Cyber protection must be integrated and capable of balancing competing needs

The 5 vectors mentioned above are inter-connected. Nonetheless, they can – and do – compete with one another so that achieving one often requires sacrificing another. However, this may lead to a ‘patchwork’ approach to cybersecurity that often creates dangerous gaps.

For cyber protection to be truly effective, it must integrate these 5 competing vectors and balance them so that organisations can achieve holistic security that is ready for any kind of challenge or threat.

A ‘fit-it-and-forget-it’ approach to cyber protection never works

Organisations that believe that cyber protection is a one-time-only event – or worse, that they don’t ‘need’ cyber protection at all – eventually realise their mistake but at a very high cost. A majority of businesses worldwide are not prepared to respond to cyber attacks even though recent research shows that the frequency and scale of such attacks is on the rise. This is why cyber protection is so critical to an organisation’s health and longevity.

Even more important, organisations must be constantly vigilant with respect to threats, and ensure that their cyber protection policies and processes are robust enough to keep up with them. Here are some proven ideas:

• Incorporate cyber protection into the DNA of your organisation’s infrastructure architecture
• Create a cyber protection centre of excellence to focus on data security and availability
• Integrate data protection, disaster recovery and data security into a holistic cyber protection programme
• Leverage technology to assess cyber threats and respond to them quickly

A final word

The ever-evolving threats organisations face today need first, a willingness to acknowledge the problem, second a new approach to security, and third, modern solutions that can grow and adapt with them. Acronis provides a number of such solutions that are trusted by organisations all over the world.

For more information about these products and volume discounts, contact us today!