Immutable or tamper-resistant backups for Home Office
Hi folks,
I'm considering getting Cyber Protect Home Office, however I'd like to determine first if my cloud backups would protected in case my home computer gets infected by ransomware (assuming there's a new kind that doesn't get detected by Cyber Protect).
I found a KB article on "immutable storage" feature recently introduced in Cyber Protect Cloud, however it's unclear whether it's available in the Home Office version, and/or if there're any other measures (other than runtime detection) to specifically protect cloud backups from being deleted, overwritten, or otherwise affected by on-premises ransomware. Could you provide some clarification on that?
Thanks!
Steve Smith wrote:The only real / guaranteed method of protecting your backup data is by adopting a recommended 3-2-1 type backup strategy.
Thanks for the response - I'm familiar with 3-2-1 strategy, however the question is, can Cyber Protect Home Office really achieve that for off-site backups? If the "immutable storage" is not available in this version, then this is not a guaranteed strategy unfortunately, as modern ransomware actively targets common backup systems, including Acronis. So even off-site cloud backups aren't safe in that case, unless they prohibit file modification from the client, or are done in "pull" mode from the cloud.
Could you please clarify if Home Office version offers that?
Thank you
Unfortunately, as I understand it, if malware or an unauthorized individual succeeds in opening the Acronis Application, it is possible for backup task to be deleted, as for inexplicable reason no password is required for this to happen. If the PC is infected with Malware, then that Malware would in many cases be backed up to the cloud. The way the backup is created would only impact on new incremental backups, earlier backups should not be impacted, so it would be possible to recover using the backup immediately before the infection. It is possible that malware has compriesed the Acronis application to prevent such recovery. In that case, using another computer, use it to create the Cloud download tool, and use it to download the backup, then use uncompromised recovery media to do the recovery.
I have not heard of immutable storage before, so I doubt that it is supported by ATI or ACPHO. It may be included in the recoding of ACPHO that is currently taking place, but no announcement has been made about the new deatures that will be included in that product.
Denis Loginov wrote:OK, thank you for these insights. I think I'll unfortunately be looking at other solutions (like Backblaze B2) that do offer such immutability.
Hello Denis.
In fact that immutable storage just exists for the product Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud.
We have plans to integrate it with Cyber Protect Home office in the future. There is feature request for that and I voted positively for you so hopefully we can implement it as soon as possible. ( the code of the feature is TI-258427 ).
Thanks in advance and for bringing this to our attention.
Best regards,
José Pedro Pereira Magalhaes