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Most business today is conducted at the edge, with employees working from home on vulnerable, often personal, endpoint devices. As the amount of sensitive corporate data accessed by devices out of an organization’s control grows, so does the attack surface that the IT team must safeguard. In response to this complex reality, Acronis today announced the development of an integrated solution for managed service providers (MSPs) designed to enhance the protection of their clients’ Citrix Workspace assets, no matter where they sit.
Citrix (citrix.com) is driven to deliver a consistent work experience, free from complexity and distractions, that enables employees to perform at their best. And solutions like Citrix Workspace the secure, intelligent, and high-performing digital workspace that enables greater employee productivity and engagement have become critical, as two-thirds of all employees have reportedly switched to remote work in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The challenge for organizations is countering the dramatic increase in sophisticated cyberattacks targeting remote workers whose home systems and networks are rarely as resilient as office environments. Compounding that challenge: New research reveals 47% of remote workers worldwide report a lack of guidance from their IT teams on working remotely. That combination leaves them vulnerable to attacks that not only hurt their productivity, but also put valuable company data and systems at risk.
“Providing a consistent experience that is secure and reliable for employees, regardless of where they are working, is critical to keeping them engaged and productive,” said PJ Hough, EVP, Chief Product Officer, Citrix. “Through Acronis’ integration with Citrix, companies can provide comprehensive cyber protection that enriches the security of virtual apps and desktop users without getting in the way of their experience, and ensure their assets and data are protected now and into the future.”
The integration of Acronis Cyber Protect with Citrix Workspace, made possible through the APIs and SDKs of the Acronis Cyber Platform, adds advanced cybersecurity capabilities that enhance Citrix’s existing privacy and security measures. As a result, the VB100 certified antimalware solution secures endpoints with real-time protection that uses AI-based static and behavioral heuristic, on-demand antivirus, antiransomware, and anticryptojacking technologies to prevent direct attacks against the Citrix Workspace app.
Cyber protection for virtual desktops
Given the increased sophistication of modern cyberthreats, any access point can be vulnerable to malware attacks that can destroy or alter files and inject malicious code. Without adequate cyber protection, a successful attack on a virtual desktop can put the entire environment at risk. Once the first client machine is compromised, the infection can move laterally across the network, encrypting data on other machines and leaving the target company open to devastating downtime and lost revenue.
Comprehensive cyber protection unites data protection and advanced cybersecurity in one solution, which delivers a proven defense against such modern threats. Developers and independent software vendors (ISVs) can enhance their solutions using the APIs and SDKs of the Acronis Cyber Platform.
By integrating with Citrix, Acronis Cyber Protect delivers a cohesive and cost-effective solution that enables MSPs to protect virtual desktop environments from direct attacks. Its advanced antimalware technology uses kernel-level drivers to protect files and registry entries from modification, while preventing the injection of malicious code.
Acronis roadmap calls for additional Citrix integrations
This integration is the first of several capabilities Acronis has planned to support Citrix solutions, with four additional enhancements being planned for early 2021. Among the features MSPs will soon see available are:
• Agentless Antimalware Protection for Virtual Machines.Other agent-based antimalware protection tools on the market require their technology to run inside each virtual machine in the environment, resulting in both greater complexity and consumption of resources. Acronis plans to integrate Acronis Cyber Protect directly with Citrix’s virtual apps and desktops solutions, which will reduce complexity and cost while streamlining resource consumption.
• Antimalware Protection for User Profiles: As the frequency and effectiveness of ransomware attacks increase, 50% of companies worldwide report experiencing cyberattacks at least once a week. Countering those attacks requires a proven solution, and testing by independent cybersecurity labs such as AV-Test and Virus Bulletin shows that Acronis Cyber Protect’s antimalware detects 100% of the latest malware attacks with zero false positives.
• Agentless Backup for Citrix Hypervisor:Most backup tools run a full-size agent inside each virtual machine, increasing the complexity of the overall system, as well as the resource consumption on the virtualization host. Acronis’ agentless backups for Citrix’s virtualized environments provides a more efficient way to capture backups by decreasing RAM/CPU consumption up to 10-times significantly reducing the time it takes to manage multiple backup agents per virtual machine.
• Continuous Data Protection for User Profiles:Throughout the workday, employees can make unintended changes to their data, such as accidentally deleting important files. This kind of data loss not only affects the individual user’s productivity, the entire business can suffer as a result. Using continuous data protection technology, the Acronis Cyber Protect agent tracks and backs up every change in user files. Its intuitive interface enables a user to revert files to the latest point in time in a transparent manner, ensuring employees and businesses stay productive.
“In this day and age, the need to bring user-friendly, comprehensive cyber protection to virtual desktop environments is more critical than ever,” saidSerguei “SB” Beloussov, founder and CEO of Acronis. “Working with partners like Citrix to develop and deploy integrated technologies is the key to ensuring businesses can survive and thrive in the COVID-19 era and well beyond.”
MSPs interested in strengthening the security of their Citrix Workspace client can try Acronis Cyber Protect for themselves with a 30-day trial.
About Acronis
Acronis (acronis.com) unifies data protection and cybersecurity to deliver integrated, automated cyber protection that solves the safety, accessibility, privacy, authenticity, and security (SAPAS) challenges of the modern digital world. With flexible deployment models that fit the demands of service providers and IT professionals, Acronis provides superior cyber protection for data, applications, and systems with innovative next-generation antivirus, backup, disaster recovery, and endpoint protection management solutions. With award-winning AI-based antimalware and blockchain-based data authentication technologies, Acronis protects any environment from cloud 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 1,500 employees in 33 locations in 18 countries. Its solutions are trusted by more than 5.5 million home users and 500,000 companies, including 100% of the Fortune 1000, and top-tier professional sports teams. Acronis products are available through 50,000 partners and service providers in over 150 countries in more than 40 languages.
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