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Report2021

ACRONIS CYBER READINESS REPORT 2021

1

AcronisCyber Readiness
Report 2021
Comprehensive cybersecurity landscape overview
www.acronis.com

Copyright © 2002-2021 Acronis International GmbH.

ACRONIS CYBER READINESS REPORT 2021

ጷ
Cyber Readiness
Report 2021

Tableof contents
Introduction and survey methodology

3

Executive summary

4Part 1: IT managers

5Part 2: Remote employees

12Part 3: Acronis CPOC Insights

17

Conclusion

19

About Acronis

20

www.acronis.com

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ACRONIS CYBER READINESS REPORT 2021

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Introduction &Survey methodology
The COVID-19 pandemic has crippled businesses worldwide – based on Acronis’
research from last year, more than 80% of global companies admitted they were notprepared to switch to remote work, with IT infrastructure suffering.
This research aims to explore in detail:• What new challenges do IT leaders and managers struggle with the most.
• What key IT infrastructure vulnerabilities caused the most damage across allindustries in the past year.
• How many cyberattacks do large businesses, SMBs, and consumers truly faceon a daily basis.
• What types of attacks cybercriminals favor – and which they will focus on next year.
• How ready are employees to switch to permanent remote work – compared tolast year.
To find the answers, Acronis conducted an independent research study,
surveying 3,600 IT managers and remote workers across 18 countries.
The findings provide a clear picture of modern cybersecurity needs, how
the business world will cope with remote work further, the changed cyberlandscape – and how it will evolve from here.

About the survey methodology
Acronis surveyed 3,600 IT managers and remote workers across 18 countries inorder to evaluate their cyber readiness during the second year into the pandemic.
Acronis had no role in selecting the respondents, all responses were provided
anonymously. The survey was conducted during September-October 2021.
Respondents came from 18 countries across four continents: Australia, Bulgaria,
Canada, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Singapore,
South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UAE, UK and US.
Within each country, 50% of respondents are members of corporate IT teams,
and 50% are employees that currently work remotely. The respondents are froma range of sectors, both public and private.

www.acronis.com

Key industries
represented:• IT/Telecom• Healthcare• Finance• Education• Others (Manufacturing,
Hospitality/Travel, Legal/
Professional services, etc.)

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ACRONIS CYBER READINESS REPORT 2021

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Executive summary
Key research findings• Nearly half (47%) of IT managers report not using multifactor authentication. They either see no value in it orconsider it too complex.
• 53% of companies have a false sense of security whenit comes to supply chain attacks – making them aneasy target. Respondents do not truly understand thenature of supply chain attacks, just using “known, trusted
software” as protection.
• Three out of ten companies report facing a cyber-attack
at least once a day, similar to last year. Companies are
getting better at detection overall.
• Only 20% of companies reported that they didn’t get
attacked – as opposed to 32% last year: attacks are
increasing in frequency.
• Record-high levels of phishing attacks persist after ayear – with malware attacks rising even higher in 2021:
36.5% of all attacks in 2021, up from 22.2% last year.
• With phishing attacks topping the charts, the demand
for a URL filtering feature grew 10 times since last year –www.acronis.com

20% of global companies now recognize the danger ofphishing for businesses worldwide.
• A standalone antivirus solution is not enough, nor is astandalone backup: the demand for integrated backup/
disaster recovery has more than doubled – 47.9% in
2021, up from 19% last year.
• Demand for remote monitoring and management tools
grew over three times – 35.7% in 2021, up from 10% lastyear. Remote work has finally been recognized as thelong-term default format of work.
• One in four remote workers struggled with the lack of IT
support in 2021 – among the key challenges they faced
this year. The top three tech challenges identified byremote workers: Wi-Fi Connectivity, Using a VPN andother security measures, Lack of IT support.
• One out of four remote employees is not using multifactor authentication – making them an easy phishingtarget.
• On average, one out of five remote employees getsheavily targeted by phishing attacks – receiving wellover 20 phishing emails per month.

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ACRONIS CYBER READINESS REPORT 2021

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IT managers
Despite the globally recognized attacks on trusted
software vendors, like Kaseya or SolarWinds, over halfof IT leaders believe that using “known, trusted software”
is sufficient protection – making them an easy target.

www.acronis.com

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ACRONIS CYBER READINESS REPORT 2021

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Companies are struggling more with software complexity and hardware shortage
this year – the transition process has not been as smooth as initially claimed.

What were the top techchallenges you encounteredsupporting increased remote
work in the past year?
60%

#1

57,2
49,6

50

44,5

42,6

40

28,2

30

21,1
20

10

0%

Enabling/instructing
employees on
remote work

Securing remoteworkers

Ensuring availabilityof corporate apps
and networks

Software not working
properly

Employees installing
unauthorizedsoftwareDid you know?

Key finding
With an overall similar picture to last year’s results, we see signs of two apparent
issues: software complexity is a tough enemy to beat and too many companies areexperiencing a hardware shortage this year.
Globally, the top tech challenges for corporate IT teams remain: Instructing
employees on remote work; Securing remote workers, and Ensuring the availabilityof internal corporate apps.
Notably, “Software not working properly” grew from 34.1% to 42.6% globally: mostcompanies reportedly rolled out new services last year, but a large portion of them
are still fine-tuning. Adopting new technology proved harder than expected.
Hardware shortages also became a more apparent issue this year, up from 18.5%
last year to 21% in 2021: employees of giant IT companies globally report having to
wait three to six months for corporate laptops due to chip shortages.
www.acronis.com

Lack of hardware or
hardware failure

Instructing remote
employees is still a top
issue for 68% ofcompanies in both UAE
and Singapore. One inthree companies in India,
France and South Africa
suffers from lack of
hardware – opposed to
one in ten companies in
Sweden, lowest among
all countries.

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ACRONIS CYBER READINESS REPORT 2021

7#2

47% of IT managers don’t normally use multi-factor authentication – either
seeing no value in it or considering it too complex.

Do you use multi-factor
authentication?

37,7%
On some accounts

30,6

On most accounts

21,6
On all accounts

10,1
No

Did you know?

Key finding
A new question asked of the respondents this year – to determine the frequency ofuse of multi-factor authentication (MFA) by members of corporate IT teams.

Colonial Pipeline wasone of the cases where
old VPN passwords wereleaked – making it one of
the incidents that could’ve
been avoided with MFA.

While some accounts don’t offer MFA at all, it turns out that a staggering 47%
of global IT managers don’t use it on a daily basis. Among the top reasons, we
suspect those IT managers either: see no value in MFA, presume it unimportant orfind it too difficult or time-consuming to implement.

www.acronis.com

Copyright © 2002-2021 Acronis International GmbH.

ACRONIS CYBER READINESS REPORT 2021

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53% of companies have a false sense of security when it comes to supply chain
attacks – making them an easy target.

How do you protect against
software supply chain attacks?

#353%

We only use known, trusted
software23,8

We use AV/EDR scanning17,8

We outsource this protection
to an external provider

3,5

We don’t currently, but plan
to within the next year

1,9

I don’t know

Key finding
Another new question we asked this year, procuring interesting results. Only 24%
of global IT managers confirmed that they were using AV/EDR scanning – while
18% outsource their protection to an external provider. However, 53% exhibit either
a false sense of security or do not truly understand the nature of supply chain
attacks – claiming to use “known, trusted software” only.
The most well-knownrecent cases of such thinking putting businesses in danger
were SolarWinds and Kaseya – both trusted software manufacturers, both having
suffered devastating attacks affecting their partners and clients globally. A supplychain attack is, by definition, coming from a trusted network – and this year alltechnology vendors are becoming desired targets in the eyes of cyber criminals.
Overall, only 2% of respondents didn’t know if or how their company defended against
such attacks. While 98% of IT managers are aware of supply chain attacks as a credible
threat - due to attacks on Kaseya and others – it would seem, the majority is stilldrawing the wrong conclusions, despite growing awareness.
www.acronis.com

Did you know?
Keen to know how to
defend against supply
chain attacks, like theSolarWinds breach?
Check out this Acronis
whitepaper
HERE

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ACRONIS CYBER READINESS REPORT 2021

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Three out of ten companies report being attacked at least once a day – similar tolast year. Companies are getting better at detection overall.

How often was your company
targeted by cyberattacks in thepast year?

#4
28,6%
At least once a month21,4At least once a week

20,6

At least once a day

20,1

We haven’t been targeted

9,3

At least once an hour

Did you know?
Key finding
This year, 30% of companies report being attacked at least once a day – similar tolast year’s level of 31%.
This year’s stats are showing that only 20% or one-fifth of all companies did notreport getting attacked – as opposed to 32% last year. There are two possible
explanations: either attacks are increasing in volume and frequency or companies
are getting better at detection – we believe both to be true.
Attackers are now using automation more frequently, learning to use artificial
intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in more attacks.

www.acronis.com

Half of companies in
Bulgaria and India faced
cyberattacks at least
once a day – 27% and
16% respectively attacked
each hour. One third ofcompanies in Japan and
Switzerland did not facecyberattacks last year,
as reported by 35% and
29% of IT managers
respectively.

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ACRONIS CYBER READINESS REPORT 2021

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#5Record-high levels of phishing attacks remain after a year – malware attacks
rising even higher in 2021.

What cyberattack types has
your organization encounteredin the past year?
60%

57,9

50

39,8

40

36,5
31,5

30

29,7
21,1

20

10

0%

Phishing attempts

DDoS attacks

Malware attacks

Video conferencing
attacks

Did you know?

Key finding
Phishing and malware attacks continue to rise, with phishing still the top attack typeplaguing companies – and last year’s peak numbers holding up even after a year.
Phishing is probably the easiest attack to carry out and one of the most efficienttechniques that continues to prey on the human element – growing even further
from the record high of 53.4% last year to 57.9% in 2021. Further growth iin the
success rates of phishing attacks can only be countered by raising awareness andhaving a strong email security.
Notably, malware attacks grew most significantly, from 22.2% in 2020 to 36.5% thisyear. Both phishing and malware attacks are still mainly delivered via email - the moreemails you send or receive, the more malware and phishing you face - but malware
attacks are the ones showing the most growth. One of the possible reasons: antimalware protection solutions used by companies are not good enough – more
attacks are succeeding and cyber criminals to rely more on malware.
www.acronis.com

Exploiting exposedservices

Phishing is still the mostcommon attack type –companies in Singapore,
Italy and UK facing it mostfrequently, as reported by
74%, 69% and 68.6% of IT
managers.
Half of companies inSouth Africa andSingapore faced malware
attacks last year, far above
the global average of 36%

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ACRONIS CYBER READINESS REPORT 2021

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Demand for a URL filtering solution grew 10 times since last year – while demandfor integrated backup/disaster recovery doubles.

Which features do you prioritize
most when choosing/operatinga corporate cyber protection
solution?
80%

#6

73,3

70
60

47,9

50

45,3
35,7

40
30

20,4

20
10
0%

Anti-malware/antivirus

Integrated backup/
disaster recovery

Vulnerability
assessments andpatch management

Remote monitoringand management

URL filtering

Key finding
With phishing attacks topping the charts, the demand for URL filtering features
among companies has grown from 2% last year to 20.4% in 2021 – a positive signthat the danger of phishing is finally being recognized by businesses globally.
The demand for antivirus has also grown by 30% – from 43% last year to 73.3%
in 2021. But for every step the companies are taking, cyber criminals have alreadytaken three: an antivirus solution alone is not enough, nor is standalone backup.
Companies worldwide are discovering this: we saw the demand for integrated
backup/disaster recovery more than doubled – from 19% last year to 47.9% in 2021.
Not surprisingly, vulnerability assessments and patch management grewsignificantly: from 26% last year to 45% in 2021 – in response the cyberthreat
landscape. Not only did we see increased volumes of vulnerabilities reported in key
platforms in 2021, including Microsoft, Chrome and others – but more threat actors
are specifically looking for vulnerabilities this year. Fueled by remote work, exposed
file exchange, and more services going online, the hunt for vulnerabilities has neverbeen bigger.

Did you know?
A bug bounty programis an essential tool for
security flaw detection.
Check out the Acronis
Bug Bounty program on
HackerOne to learn more:offering up to $5,000 for
spotting bugs in our cyberprotection solutions.

Remote monitoring and management tools are in high demand this year – up from
10% last year to 35.7% in 2021: which is no surprise given the raging pandemic andremote work becoming the default format of work.
www.acronis.com

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ACRONIS CYBER READINESS REPORT 2021

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Remoteemployees
Despite the growing cyberthreats, people will continue
to work and hire remotely - that’s the reality all IT teams
need to equip for. Finding a solution to hardware
shortages, increased software complexity and growing
need for IT support is a good start.

www.acronis.com

Copyright © 2002-2021 Acronis International GmbH.

ACRONIS CYBER READINESS REPORT 2021

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One in four remote workers struggled with the lack of IT support in 2021 – among
the top three tech challenges they faced this year.

What have been the mosttechnically challenging aspectsof working remotely?
45%

#1

43,9
36,5

40
35
30

27

26,4

Lack of IT support

Lack of hardware or
hardware failure

25,6

25,3

Inability to useinternal network andapplications

Difficulty adding new
devices to corporate
network

25
20
15
10
5
0%

Wi-Fi connectivity

Using a VPN andother security
measures

Key finding
We detected the most significant growth of concern among remote employees
over “Lack of IT support” – reported by 17.1% of respondents last year, now up to
27% in 2021, highlighting an interesting trend.
Providing IT support has become even more difficult this year – the environment
has changed dramatically: physical distance has become permanent,
environments have only increased in size and complexity, and addressing IT issues
has become slower and more expensive.
With new tools and solutions for remote work being adopted, IT teams have more
applications to manage, like cloud applications. Not all IT teams had the rights skill
set for that, increasing stress and the need for experienced IT professionals.

Did you know?
Wi-Fi connectivity is a
top issue for two-thirdsof employees in India andIsrael. 58% of employees
in India also suffer fromlack of hardware andbeing unable to add new
devices – two times theglobal average.

Same as last year, enabling a VPN, relying heavily on video calls and live streaming,
having whole families working and studying at home at the same time – thesefactors are reflecting badly on remote workers’ Wi-Fi connectivity, leaving themfrustrated and cutting corners on data protection procedures.
Remote monitoring and management tools are in high demand this year – up from
10% last year to 35.7% in 2021: which is no surprise given the raging pandemic andremote work becoming the default format of work, and a long-term one.

www.acronis.com

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ACRONIS CYBER READINESS REPORT 2021

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One out of four remote employees is not using multi-factor authentication –making them an easy phishing target.

Do you use multi-factor
authentication?

#2
38,3%
On some accounts

25,3
No

21

On most accounts

15,4
On all accounts

Did you know?
Key finding
Only over a third of remote employees (36%) are using multi-factor authentication(MFA) on most or all the accounts – while 25% are not using it at all, leaving
themselves exposed.

Employees in Japan,
France and Spain mostresistant to use MFA –at 69%, 47% and 32%
respectively compared
to global average of 25%

Not using MFA leaves your email, social media , and other accounts vulnerable tophishing attacks, which is still the most frequently reported type of cyberattack,having grown even more since last year – as seen in Part 1: IT managers.
The largest segment of remote workers (38%) is using MFA on some accounts only:
likely forced to do so by various platforms enforcing MFA for daily operations – forexample, banking service providers or cashless payment operators.
www.acronis.com

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ACRONIS CYBER READINESS REPORT 2021

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On average, one out of five remote employees gets heavily targeted by phishingattacks – receiving more than 5 phishing emails each week.

How many phishing emails
do you receive on averagein a month?

#336%
1-5 emails

18,3
20+ emails17

6-10 emails

14,5
None

14,2
I don’t know

Key finding
71% of respondents confirm being targeted by phishing each month – with 18%,
or roughly one out of five, receiving over 20 phishing emails in a month.
The users targeted most are usually the ones using email most often: the more
active you are, the better target you make. We’re seeing more sophisticatedphishing techniques each day, requiring 24/7 vigilance.
Learning to identify such attacks through awareness and proper training is crucial
in keeping not just enterprises and organizations protected, but your personal
assets as well.

Did you know?
Employees in Bulgaria,
India and UAE facing
phishing attacks mostoften – 30%, 26% and 23%
report receiving over 20
phishing emails per month.

Did you know? 2021 is the year sophisticated phishing techniques establish theirpresence – third-party phishing, impersonation, personalized messages banking
on loads of personal info getting leaked in frequent data breaches.
www.acronis.com

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ACRONIS CYBER READINESS REPORT 2021

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Number of remote employees to purchase 2 or more devices nearly doubled thisyear, purchase confirmed by 27% of respondents.

Have you or your family members
purchased any new devices –computers or wearables – sincehaving started to work remotely?

#4
38,6%
One new device

34,7
No new devices

26,7

Two or more new devices

Did you know?

Key finding
Remote work has finally been accepted as the default work format – with 66% of
employees buying extra devices for themselves, as well as their kids’ remote studies.
Conversely, 35% of remote workers report not having purchased any new devices
this year (down from 51% in 2020) – suggesting they are still using their old,
unpatched personal laptops for work.
www.acronis.com

Large portion of
employees in UAE, India
and Germany purchased
multiple new devices
since pandemic began– at 45.5%, 45% and
40% respectively. While
over half of employees
in France, Japan andSpain purchased no new
devices at all.

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ACRONIS CYBER READINESS REPORT 2021

17

AcronisCyber Protection
Operations Center
insights
If you are keen to learn more about cybersecurity pain
points and available solutions for businesses, don’t
miss the chance to register for the Acronis #CyberFit
Summit World Tour 2021.
REGISTER NOW

www.acronis.com

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ACRONIS CYBER READINESS REPORT 2021

18

Trends overview from Acronis Cyber Protection
Operations Center (CPOC) security experts

CPOC

Perimeter security is obsolete.
#WorkFromHome

will soon be

replaced – the next frontier andchallenge for businesses will be#WorkFromAnywhere

Did you know?

1. The growing complexity of IT infrastructure
In last year’s Acronis Cyber Readiness Report, we saw an increase in adoption of
new services, especially SaaS in the cloud. This increases the overall complexity of
the IT environment further and will most likely lead to more unplanned disruptionsin the future.
Automation can help to keep up with the different configuration changes, but such
scripts need to be carefully planned and monitored or they may generate evenmore issues.

2. Attacks outside of Windows
We have seen attackers increasingly expanding their targets. It is no longer Windows
only, but Linux, MacOS, Android and iOS devices as well. Attackers are also goingafter virtualized environments more often, be it container in the cloud or performant
VM servers, like ESXi servers, which have seen an increase in ransomware attacks.

3. Malicious Software as a Service growing further
Unfortunately, you don’t need to be tech-savvy to create chaos with malware.
Cybercriminal groups have further expanded their malware-as-a-service model,
providing step-by-step guides on how to compromise targets and make profits.
Ransomware groups now even try to recruit company insiders, getting them to
execute the ransomware in exchange for a share of the profits.
www.acronis.com

Facebook experienced
an unwanted disruption
when they went offline
for six hours after a faulty
Border Gateway Protocol(BGP) configuration
update knocked themoff the Internet, including
their DNS servers.
Three key weak points
were exposed during
last year’s abrupt shift toremote work:• Exposed servers (RDP,
VPN, Citrix, DNS, etc.)• Weak authentication
techniques• Insufficient monitoring.

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ACRONIS CYBER READINESS REPORT 2021

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4. New name, old tricks

6. Patch, patch, patch

A handful of ransomware groups have “rebranded”
themselves – for example, DarkSide or DoppelPaymer,
after their affiliates attacked large targets and attracted
law enforcement attention. This is an attempt to make it
more difficult for law enforcement agencies to make acase – don’t get fooled, they are still out there attacking
companies like yours.

Over 16,000 vulnerabilities have been reported so far in
2021. Many of them were critical and in-core components,
such as Microsoft Exchange server, Chrome browser
or Apache webserver. Keeping up with plugging theseweaknesses can become a full-time job and puts
additional stress on the already overloaded IT teams.

5. Phishing still works well
Malicious emails and phishing in all variations are stillat an all-time high. Despite the constant awarenesscampaigns, users still fall for them and enable theattacker to compromise their organization. With increased
automation and personalized information from the various
data breaches, these attacks are constantly growing insophistication and efficacy.

7. Remote work will not go away
Global businesses employ international teams, requiring
more complex IT support and creating a legislative
nightmare. The supply shortage of hardware devices
increases the complexity even further. People willcontinue to work and hire remotely – that’s the businessreality most IT teams were not ready for.

Conclusion

Remote work is here to stay, so are the increased levels of sophisticatedcyber-attacks – and it’s up to both the company and the individual to follow
the best cyber protection practices available.
Are you keen to learn more about cybersecurity pain points and available solutions for businesses?

Register now for the Acronis #CyberFit Summit World Tour
2021. One platform that allows you to:• Attend result-focused virtual sessions for free and learn from world-classexperts on cyber protection.
• Enhance your MSP business’ cyber protection capabilities with advice fromthe top channel, cybersecurity, and industry experts.
• Hear exclusive case studies of successful, profitable, and scaling MSPs
and MSSPs.
• Learn how to grow your business with cybersecurity-forward services.
• Join hands-on, interactive workshops, insightful panels and breakouts, andinspiring keynotes – while enjoying IT channel networking opportunities.

Get access to the recorded sessions from theAcronis #CyberFit Summit World Tour 2021 here

www.acronis.com

REGISTER NOW

For more information about the report, you canreach us via email at: AcronisMedia@acronis.com

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20

About Acronis
Acronis unifies data protection and cybersecurity to deliver integrated, automated cyber protectionthat solves the safety, accessibility, privacy, authenticity, and security (SAPAS) challenges of themodern digital world. With flexible deployment models that fit the demands of service providers andIT professionals, Acronis provides superior cyber protection for data, applications, and systems with
innovative next-generation antivirus, backup, disaster recovery, and endpoint protection management
solutions powered by AI. With advanced anti-malware powered by cutting-edge machine intelligenceand blockchain based data authentication technologies, Acronis protects any environment – fromcloud to hybrid to on premises – at a low and predictable cost.
Founded in Singapore in 2003 and incorporated in Switzerland in 2008, Acronis now has more than
1,700 employees in 34 locations in 19 countries. Its solutions are trusted by more than 5.5 million homeusers and 500,000 companies, and top-tier professional sports teams. Acronis products are available
through over 50,000 partners and service providers in over 150 countries and 25 languages. For more
information, visit www.acronis.com

www.acronis.com

Copyright © 2002-2021 Acronis International GmbH.