Representative End User Clients
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Representative Software Clients
AI is finding its way into an increasing number of applications for industrial/OT cybersecurity. For end users, it can be difficult to keep track of what's going on, what's available, and what's actually useful. As part of an ongoing series of blog posts, ARC is looking at all the major OT cybersecurity providers and how they are embedding AI into their offerings.
This week we're focusing on Acronis—a Swiss company founded in Singapore that unifies data protection and cybersecurity to deliver integrated, automated cyber protection that addresses the safety, accessibility, privacy, authenticity, and security (SAPAS) challenges of the modern digital world. With flexible deployment models for service providers and IT professionals, Acronis provides cyber protection for data, applications, and systems with next-generation antivirus, backup, disaster recovery, and endpoint protection management solutions powered by AI.
Acronis uses AI and ML to strengthen its industrial cybersecurity offerings with intelligent threat detection, enhanced performance, proactive mitigation strategies, and streamlined incident response—all within a unified platform designed to protect OT systems and ensure business continuity.
Acronis Cyber Protect for OT
How Acronis Applies AI in OT Cybersecurity
Acronis employs AI-driven technologies, including Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and behavioral heuristics, to analyze complex patterns and detect malicious behavior in real time against zero-day and sophisticated attacks that traditional signature-based methods might miss.
Its Active Protection technology specifically uses AI and ML to recognize and halt ransomware attacks by monitoring system behavior for unusual encryption activities.
Acronis also offloads computationally intensive AI model analysis tasks to specialized hardware like Intel Neural Processing Units (NPUs) using OpenVINO™ AI frameworks. This reduces strain on CPUs, optimizing performance and power consumption—particularly valuable in resource-constrained industrial environments.
Real-Time Threat Detection and Ransomware Protection
Acronis Cyber Protect, particularly through its Active Protection feature, utilizes AI and ML to monitor system processes for anomalous or malicious behavior indicative of ransomware attacks. By analyzing stack traces and establishing baselines of normal system behavior, it can detect and stop ransomware and other malware—including zero-day threats—before data can be encrypted. This is particularly important for OT systems, which are often vulnerable to novel attack vectors not covered by traditional signature-based detection.
Behavioral Analysis for Unknown Threats
Beyond recognizing known threats, Acronis’ ML-powered behavioral analysis identifies malicious intent based on how applications and processes behave, rather than solely on signatures. This enables detection and mitigation of unknown and emerging threats, including those targeting legacy OT systems.
Predictive Analytics and Proactive Protection
Acronis' AI-driven threat intelligence collects data from millions of endpoints to train ML models that can predict and prevent attacks. This includes features like hard drive health monitoring, which uses ML to predict failures and prevent data loss and downtime.
Automated Incident Response and Remediation
AI streamlines incident response by automating triage, assessing severity, and providing remediation suggestions. AI-powered chatbots assist security analysts in understanding and responding to incidents efficiently. Acronis’ solutions also enable the creation of targeted remediation scripts during active breaches, ensuring rapid containment and minimizing potential damage.
Simplified Management and Improved Efficiency
AI scripting capabilities in Acronis Cyber Protect allow automation of routine and complex IT and security tasks within OT environments, reducing manual effort and errors. AI can also generate scripts for vulnerability scanning, incident response, and compliance verification, making these tasks faster and more reliable.