Singapore’s Acronis, a global cyberprotection provider, has found a disconnect between the understanding that data must be protected and the actions to reach that goal.
The global survey, released on 31 March (World Backup Day), polled 4,400 IT users and professionals in 22 countries across six continents, including Singapore, and dispels the myth that simply adding more solutions will solve cybersecurity and data protection challenges.
“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 cyberprotection, which unifies data protection, cybersecurity, and endpoint management in one.”
The survey found a significant gap in awareness among users in Singapore of what IT and cybersecurity capabilities are available to them, which could cause them to lose valuable time, money, and security:
Over six in 10 (63%) of IT users would not know if their data had been modified without their knowledge because their solution makes determining that kind of tampering difficult.
More than four in 10 (43%) of IT users don’t know if their anti-malware stops zero-day threats, because their solution doesn’t make that information easily available – only 32% claim to actually have it. Having easy access to such cybersecurity insights is critical to ensuring data is protected.
If those responsible for ensuring data privacy don’t know they are culpable, they cannot implement strategies or evaluate the solutions needed to address the requirements. That ignorance puts the business at tremendous risk of major fines for potential compliance violations in 2021.
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.
Individuals’ lax approach to protection
The survey also revealed a lax approach to data protection among Singapore’s IT users:
Ninety-two percent of IT users spent more time on their devices last year, yet only half of them took extra steps to protect those devices
Four in 10 (41%) admit to not updating their devices until at least a week after being notified of a patch, or even longer
Nearly all (97%) IT users reported performing backups (5% back up daily), yet 69% have irretrievably lost data at least once, suggesting that they don’t know how to back up or recover properly
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.
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:
Create backups of important data. Keep multiple copies of your backups, with one local copy for fast recovery and one off-site in the cloud to guarantee recovery if disaster destroys your copies.
Update your operating systems and applications. Outdated systems and apps lack the security fixes that stop cybercriminals from gaining access. Regular patching is required to avoid exploits.
Avoid suspicious emails, links, and attachments. Most malware infections are the result of social engineering techniques that trick unsuspecting individuals into opening infected email attachments or clicking on links to websites that host malware.
Install antivirus, anti-malware, and anti-ransomware software while enabling automatic updates so your system is protected against malware.
Consider adopting a single cyberprotection solution to have the central management and integrated protection needed to meet today’s IT requirements.
