Whenever there’s a large-scale ransomware attack like WannaCry and EternalPetya, the number of infected computers reported by the media can be overwhelming.  As a result, it’s easy to forget there are thousands of individuals who need to rebuild their digital lives in the aftermath.

But hearing customers talk about how Acronis saved their data is a great reminder that our solutions help real people every day.

Karl is a long-time Acronis customer from Germany. He’s a talented, seasoned computer user who educated his sister about being cautious online. “I’ve trained her well,” he said. “She calls me rarely and keeps her eyes open.”

He wrote to let us know that his sister had opened an email that was supposedly sent by a well-known cosmetics company. Both the email and the link it contained looked 100 percent genuine. Unfortunately, she realized after she clicked the link that the email and domain were spoofed, a technique used by criminals in phishing attacks. She immediately closed the browser, but with 93 percent of phishing attacks delivering ransomware she was definitely concerned.

Thankfully Karl was using an Acronis backup product on his sister’s computer, which meant her system was being guarded by Acronis Active Protection, a unique technology that uses artificial intelligence, behavioral heuristics and machine learning to detect and stop ransomware activity before it can do any damage.

That was a good thing for Karl’s sister, since her computer was infected by the spoof. The anti-ransomware software worked like a charm. “Acronis Active Protection stepped in and blocked the original outlook.exe process and prevented further infection.”

Karl added that while Acronis Active Protection’s quick actions were impressive, the incident also reinforced the importance of having a recent backup.

“Her PST file also got corrupted but luckily the last scheduled backup was just two weeks ago.” He simply recovered her PST file and unblocked outlook.exe to get her computer running smoothly.

This attack perfectly illustrates the challenges of data protection for today’s users, and why they need a combination of backup and an active defense against ransomware to keep a system safe. That’s why Acronis developed an all-in-one solution that makes it easy for people to avoid infection – and becoming a statistic.

Our goal is constant data protection. Based on his experience, Karl said, “Mission accomplished.”

Acronis can help secure your business from data loss, from many types of threats including ransomware, accidental and deliberate deletion, and more. For more information on Acronis please see our product information pages.