Companies in India reported more cyberattacks than any other country in the world: Acronis

In the wake of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, companies in India are reporting more cyberattacks than any other country in the world and 56% of them report their IT costs having increased significantly in the past months – exactly two times the global average, reveals the Acronis Cyber Readiness Report 2020.

The report further highlights that 92% of the companies globally have adopted new technologies to enable remote work, including workplace collaboration tools, privacy solutions, and endpoint cybersecurity. The survey was conducted by Acronis, a global leader in cyber protection across seventeen countries with India being one of them and 3,400 global companies and remote workers.

The challenge for organizations is that managing the protection of data across the company network and all of those new devices using a stack of different solutions is expensive, time-consuming, and complicated. The lack of integration also creates gaps in the organization’s defenses that cybercriminals are exploiting. The Acronis Cyber Readiness Report reveals that as hackers target remote workers, phishing, distributed denial of service (DDoS), and videoconferencing attacks are the most common tactics used.

Below are some of the key findings:

· 39% of global companies experienced a videoconferencing attack in the past three months as workers rely on apps like Zoom, Cisco Webex, and Microsoft Teams – India demonstrates the highest rates, with 66% of local companies reporting having encountered videoconferencing attacks

· Malware attacks such as ransomware also have increased during the pandemic, with 31% of companies reporting daily cyberattacks and half (50%) being targeted at least once a week – India reported twice as many attacks as any other country, followed by the US and the UAE.

· Phishing attacks are occurring at historic levels, which is not surprising since the report found only 2% of companies consider URL filtering when evaluating a cybersecurity solution. That oversight leaves remote workers vulnerable to phishing sites – while 62% of companies in India report struggling with phishing attempts.

These Acronis findings and external research illustrate why organizations need a cyber-protection solution that reduces complexity and improves security to support remote work environments, and the solution must be cost-effective to address the scale of remote workers. Acronis addresses these challenges with the release of Acronis Cyber Protect 15, which integrates backup, disaster recovery, next-generation anti-malware, cybersecurity, and endpoint management tools into a single solution. The new product comes at a time when businesses are struggling to safeguard their data and infrastructure against the risks of the new remote work landscape.

The modern cyber landscape demands modern protection

“The cyberthreat landscape has changed dramatically during the past few years, and in the last six months in particular. Traditional stand-alone antivirus and backup solutions are unable to protect against modern cyberthreats,” said Serguei “SB” Beloussov, founder and CEO of Acronis. “Organizations that modernize their stack with integrated data protection and cybersecurity not only gain greater security, they lower their costs and improve efficiencies. The automation and streamlined management of Acronis Cyber Protect 15 means any business can decrease their risk, avoid downtime, and increase their IT team’s productivity.”

With Acronis Cyber Protect 15’s unique integration of data protection and next-generation cybersecurity capabilities – including AI-based behavioral detection that stops zero-day attacks, URL filtering, vulnerability assessments, videoconference protection, and automated patch management – organizations protect against modern cyberthreats while ensuring they can recover their data and systems faster than any other solution.

· 10% of users might click on malicious links that lead to phishing attacks, but the URL filtering in Acronis Cyber Protect blocked all of those sites – protecting the users, their devices, and their company’s data.

· Videoconferencing protection prevents the exploitation of popular video conferencing solutions

· Testing by independent cybersecurity labs such as AV-Test and Virus Bulletin shows that Acronis Cyber Protect’s antimalware detects 100% of malware attacks with zero false positives.

Based on the current cyberattack rate, the unique integration of backup and cybersecurity enables Acronis Cyber Protect to prevent an estimated $150 million in direct losses for its customers each year.

The comprehensive cyber protection delivered by Acronis Cyber Protect will continue to be vital in the post-pandemic landscape. With 88% of the remote workers surveyed by Acronis expecting to work from home to some extent even after the pandemic ends, ensuring their protection and cybersecurity will require the kind of integration and automation found only in Acronis Cyber Protect 15.