How Acronis Cyber Protection would have prevented the MediaMarkt incident
A few days ago, we posted about the unfortunate incident of the successful ransomware attack on Europe’s largest consumer electronics retailer, the MediaMarktSaturn Retail Group. Although the company has its own Security Operations Centre (SOC) and only introduced its new security strategy in 2015, implementing over 30 specific measures for improving security and minimising risks, the cyber criminals from the ransomware group Hive still succeeded in breaking through its firewall.
SOC + CPOC = effective protective shield
The incident once again demonstrates that SOCs – without a doubt an essential part of an effective security strategy – need to be supplemented with additional solutions for prioritising detected incidents and reducing SOC analysts’ workloads. Cloud services are particularly suited in this regard. One such globally active service is the Acronis Cyber Protection Operation Centre (CPOC), where a team of international IT security experts operates a highly efficient system for the instant detection of attacks with the aid of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The findings obtained are incorporated into products like Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, a unique solution that combines the integration of backups with next generation full-stack anti-malware protection and comprehensive tools for endpoint management in a single package.
The CPOC, which opened an office in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, in August 2020, has its own radar screen for the EMEA region, identifies new cyber threats on a daily basis and automatically provides suitable patches through the use of a dedicated ‘Vulnerability Assessment and Patch Management’ model, had detected the risk from Hive at an early stage.
In the current MediaMarktSaturn case, the Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud protective mechanisms triggered on the basis of its findings would have led to the following warning message:
Unfortunately, this message was not sent by the security solution used. We can only hope that the MediaMarktSaturn Retail Group quickly gains control of the problems caused and manages to keep the financial damage to a minimum.
Companies and private individuals concerned by these and similar incidents can effectively protect themselves against such attacks with Acronis Cyber Protection solutions. To help you understand what makes the Acronis Cyber Protection approach so unique, we have compiled a list of the most important points here.