The following products will no longer be supported by Avira beyond December 31, 2021
Avira Antivirus Pro Business Edition
Avira Antivirus for Server
Avira Antivirus for Endpoint
Avira Antivirus for Small Business
Avira Exchange Security
Existing licenses with an expiry date of up to December 31, 2020, can be renewed via your reseller until November 30, 2020. This deadline has not passed so you will need to contact your account manager for an alternative solution.
Organisations come to MR Backup who want to mitigate the risks or getting caught out by cybercriminals locking them out of their systems.
Businesses have experienced a 50% increase in the rise of data breach reports due to cybersecurity attacks. Criminals are now using sophisticated ways to target your employees to open infected emails that will encrypt all your network data. A recent survey showed 93% of data security breaches are caused by human error.
ABC to Ransomware
Step 1 Antivirus Protection should be installed and up to date and auto-update is turned on.
Step 2 Backup your data and ensure it is encrypted and stored off your network.
Step 3 Continuity solutions from Mr Backup will roll back and restart your servers before the attack.
Contact us today to discuss your concerns and we will advise you on the best route to reduce your risk of getting caught out from ransomware
How no Data Protection and Cybersecurity plan can impact your business reputation.
Why does data need to be protected? Before answering this question, we need to agree on what Data Protection and Cybersecurity are.
Data protection is a set of laws, regulations and best practices intended to secure digital information without limiting the use of the data for business purposes all the while not compromising the data in any way, thereby safeguarding the data from unstated or malicious use.
Cybersecurity is the measures and processes taken to protect a computer system or data against unauthorized access or attack. Both set down minimum standards and reporting requirements for serious breaches. There are essentially two reasons organisations should protect data, legislation and reputational damage.
Legislation
In the European Union, the expectation that data is protected is a right. As such, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), since coming into force in May 2018, has provided a robust framework for ensuring that right.
Data Protection laws vary from country to country, but the principle of the laws are similar. Many countries have derived their legislation from GDPR. A fiduciary obligation is the legal obligation of one party (a fiduciary) to act in the best interest of another. The fiduciary is someone (a person or persons – not an organisation) entrusted with the care of assets or property. The fiduciary, in most cases C-Level Executives, have the same obligations for data since it is considered as an asset, failure of these obligations may lead to personal liability and legal consequence.
Reputational Damage
The greatest harm a breach can cause is the loss of the customer’s trust. It can take years to build a company’s reputation and one breach, in a matter of hours, can destroy that. The actual breach is the tip of the iceberg, in most cases, a breach is closely followed by customer or shareholder lawsuits.
It is for these reasons that adopting sound data protection procedures to avoid any sort of cybercrime is no longer optional.
In general, data protection legislation distinguishes ‘personal data’ and ‘sensitive personal data’ (data pertaining to, for example, ethnic background, religious beliefs, health, etc.). Data protection frameworks provide suggestions and rules on how data is to be stored and used in business activities (e.g. for marketing).
Organisations are to ensure data is:
Used in ways that are stated up-front with the owner of that data
Stored only for the period of time it is needed
Stored safely and securely
Recoverable for data forensic usage if ever required, in line with local legislation (for example financial transactional data must be stored for 7 years in many countries)
Organisations have two sets of data – that belonging to the customer and that of the employees – all of which need to be protected, to prevent misuse by unauthorized third parties for purposes of fraud.
How to protect your data in the cloud
Does Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Dropbox backup my data?
If you are using Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox or any other Free cloud storage provider they all use file synchronisation technology to create a copy of your data.
While these cloud systems state they Backup your data and provide data protection and recovery it is very limited in what they can recover and comes with a hidden risk you may not know about.
Like every other storage media whether it is your PC hard drive, USB Storage Disk, NAS it still needs to be protected with a separate backup tool that follows the 3-2-1 Backup Rule that is independent of the storage system you use to store your files.
For example, Dropbox duplicates your files onto every computer you own, it also keeps its own set of backups – so you can roll back to an earlier version of a file, or recover deleted items. This feature can be a real life-saver: to recover a deleted file, you can just log in through the browser, click Files, then click Deleted files in the sidebar. Find the file you want to resurrect and click restore.
The catch is that changes and deleted files are only stored for 30 days, after which they’re purged. So while Dropbox can rescue you from short-term problems, it’s no use when you need to restore a document that was changed or deleted a few months ago. You can extend the window to 120 days by upgrading to a Dropbox professional account £199 annually, or £19.99 per month.
With all these systems, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox and others your files are dispersed to all your devices. Each one of your devices is a week point and are open to ransomware encryption, corruption from Malware, infection of viruses and open to theft by using your mobile devices on public WiFi networks.
Anyone of these threats can affect the files on your device and synchronise the affected file to your cloud storage. Once in the cloud, it will wreak havoc on the rest of your files and will infect others when you share files with infection.
We recommend you protect and secure your cloud storage. Have a separate backup system for your cloud storage and install antivirus and malware protection software on your PCs and Mobile devices. See below for some recommend product from Mr Backup
Office Backup System
Backup all your PC and Mobile data to one central point in your office with a network attached backup storage device.
Features include:
Simple user-friendly setup
Data Encryption, backup and restore
Scalable solutions for home user up to enterprise businesses
Synchronise to cloud backup for additional protection
Setup and support from Mr Backup Service Desk
Theft Proof Data Storage
Mr Backup’s unique Stealth Replicator is installed in over 1000’s of customer premises backing up PCs, Servers to one central point with archive backups stored in our datacentres.
Features include:
Covert Design fools would be thieves
Securely screwed to a wall or hidden out of sight
Data Encryption, backup and restore
Scalable solutions for home user up to enterprise businesses
Synchronise to cloud backup for additional protection
Protect yourself and your business from the 13,842 attempted cyber attacks happening in South Africa every day.
PASSWORDS
Set Memorable Passwords. Forget using characters or numbers in place of letters trying to make secure passwords. Use memorable passwords made up of at least 3 random words you will remember. Don’t use the same password for all systems. Instead, have a strong password set for differing groups of systems to help you remember. For example, social media group passwords, financial banking applications group, Online shopping, machine, and work password groups.
FREE SOFTWARE
Beware of using free software. Especially free antivirus software and any software key hacks. Many of them contain Malware to track your life through the internet
SECURITY UPDATES
Always update your PC and Mobile devices with the latest security patches from the source vendor.
USB Devices
Never use free USB sticks from an event or that someone has given to you. Unless you have up to date antivirus software installed you are running a big risk of being infected.
PHISHING EMAIL
Always be aware when opening any email even from people you know.
Don’t trust anything you haven’t expected. Always be suspicious of emails you haven’t expected, even from people you know. Especially if it asks you to open an attachment, click on a link or divulge any information.
Verify the sender address by clicking reply, you will see that an alleged internal email is really going somewhere else.
Requests for money should raise alarm bells. Always treat requests for money or sensitive information with a high degree of skepticism.
Look but don’t click. Hover your mouse over any links embedded in the body of the email. If the link address looks suspicious, don’t click on it
Verify with the sender.If the tone or the purpose of the email is slightly out of the ordinary, like a request for payment from the CEO to you, rather call or text the sender before actioning anything.
We recommend getting your staff trained on how to spot phishing email attacks. Contact your Mr Backup representative today for further information and training available.
RECOVERY PLAN
Get a Recovery Plan… As well keeping yourself secure with education, antivirus and security software the ultimate recovery solution should you become a target always falls back to having a reliable and automated backup and recovery solution.
Your Backup and Recovery plan must include the 3-2-1 Rule.
Have 3 copies of your data. Use 2 separate storage systems. 1 copy of your data in a separate location.
EDUCATE YOURSELF
Increase your knowledge of online security threats. Learn about the different types of attacks cybercriminals will use to access your data.
Malware
can be defined as any programme or file intended to damage or disable computers
and computer systems without the user’s knowledge. Malware can include computer viruses, worms
and Trojan horses.
A
“worm” is a standalone malware computer programme that replicates itself in
order to spread to other computers.
A
Trojan horse is a type of malware that is often disguised as legitimate
software.
Spyware
is software that collects a person’s personal information such as credit card
numbers, without the person knowing it is happening. The information is sent to criminals without
the consumer’s consent where it can be used to commit fraud.
Key
loggers are devices which will record every keystroke a user makes. Keystroke
logging is malicious spyware that is used to capture sensitive information like
passwords or financial information. Sensitive information is sent to third
parties for exploitation by criminals.
MONITOR & REPORT
Make staff education, system updates, recovery processes, monitoring and reporting part of your day to day business. Security is not a one-off project. Ask your Mr Backup contact how to improve your security to help you discuss and guide you on the best solutions for your business.
Mr Backup Offers the following services:
NEW SERVICES from South Africa’s leading data protection experts
Mr Backup has been busy enhancing services to support the needs of our customers by expanding our Cloud Backup, support monitoring, security, and consultancy services.
Cloud Backup Services
Cloud Backup for Windows, Linux, Apple
Backup for Office 365 Mail, OneDrive, SharePoint
Offsite Server replication and hosting
Disaster Recovery as a Service
Onsite storage and backup solutions
Synology
NetApp
Stealth
Replicators
Monitoring – Security – Support
Daily backup reports
System health monitoring
Enhanced anti-virus tools
Web based backup management tools
Security, Disaster Recovery, and Compliance Consultancy
Stay ahead of the new government and financial regulations
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