Acronis partners with ARIA Cybersecurity to Integrate AZT PROTECT into its Acronis Cyber Protect Solution

ARIA Cybersecurity, a CSPi business and Acronis, an active player in cybersecurity and data protection, announced a new partnership to safeguard large scale OT operations around the world by integrating ARIA’s patented AZT PROTECT as a feature set within the Acronis Cyber Protect solution.

Acronis has partnered with ARIA in response to feedback from enterprise and ICS/DCS industrial automation customers seeking a solution that combines Industrial Control System (ICS) lockdown with operating system and application-level cyberattack protection. This capability is now integrated within Acronis’ Cyber Protect backup and disaster recovery solution. Under the agreement, Acronis is also authorized to resell the ARIA AZT PROTECT solution as a standalone offering.

The OT market is seeking solutions like ARIA’s AZT PROTECT, which provides:

• Simple deployment and operation: An easy-to-operate OS and application lockdown solution that prevents unscheduled updates
• Reliable cyberattack protection: Security without daily vendor updates that, if untested, can trigger false positives or disrupt entire OT environments.
• Extended system life: Safeguards Windows 10 and older systems, even as Microsoft ends vulnerability patches, by protecting the OS from exploits.
• Seamless integration: Works within a leading, widely used & trusted backup and recovery solution, enabling full protection with one-click rollback to a known-good state if an incident occurs.

“We are very pleased to partner with CSPi and add ARIA’s AZT solution as a feature set within our Acronis offering,” said Pat Hurley, RVP Americas, Acronis. “Our OT customers have been looking for a better, fully automated, defense-in-depth solution from a single trusted vendor that addresses their unique requirements. This partnership will address the needs explained here and more.” 

AZT PROTECT provides a lock-down approach to protecting critical infrastructure applications from unintended updates as well as attacks such as stopping all forms of malware, ransomware, and nation-state backed attacks on these applications and the operating systems on which they run. In addition, AZT stops code-based exploits that previously had to be stopped by OS based security patches, thus extending the useful life of such legacy operating system-based production systems – once such patches are no longer provided by the vendor. Over half of worldwide OT installations will be unprotected once Windows 10 no longer receives patches later this month.

“We are extremely pleased that our solution was selected by Acronis to be integrated into their industry leading backup and recovery solution,” said Victor Dellovo, CEO, CSPI and ARIA Cybersecurity. “Acronis is a trusted vendor among large ICS/DCS solutions vendors as well as leading global enterprises with OT environments. Combined our offering can bring protection that fills the needs of this large global market.”

The solution utilizes patented reactive AI-based countermeasures to stop the attacks as they land on an operation’s most vulnerable critical production control systems. These countermeasures lock down critical applications from unscheduled updates and adulteration while stopping code-based attacks, such as malware and ransomware, from executing. Further, they disrupt the techniques nation-state-backed attackers utilize to land, expand, and then escalate privileges to take control of such systems.