Acronis has announced the enhancement of its security defence against advanced fileless attacks using Intel Threat Detection Technology (Intel TDT) leveraging the Intel integrated graphics processing unit (GPU) to offload memory scanning operations from the central processing unit (CPU). Acronis is the latest cyber protection company to integrate Intel TDT to enrich its security products.
With cyber threats evolving and growing on a daily basis, Acronis researchers have witnessed new types of malware and attack vectors on enterprises such as polymorphic malware and fileless attacks. Many threats utilise an in-memory-only approach which can be hard to detect. Intel TDT technology allows Acronis cyber protection solutions to free resources while scanning hard disk drive (HDD) and memory resulting in improved system performance. Acronis researchers found that while scanning all the processes in system memory on supported CPUs, Intel TDT reduced the load on the CPU 2.4x times, by offloading the job to the Intel integrated GPU.
The Acronis solution combines complete single-agent cyber protection with Intel TDT. This enhancement results in lower CPU utilisation which allows more compute capacity for productivity and office software used by Acronis end customers while compute-intensive security operations run in the Intel integrated GPU. The innovation of Intel TDT will be available through Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, Acronis Cyber Protect, and Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office solutions.
Commenting on the development, Patrick Pulvermueller, chief executive officer, Acronis, said, “The integration of Intel TDT into Acronis cyber protection solutions is a logical step to meet the needs of our users. During the last year, we observed that almost 50 per cent of attacks detected were fileless. The use of this Intel technology is a great milestone as we continue to optimise and enhance our anti-malware engine.”
Meanwhile, Carla Rodríguez, vice president and general manager, Ecosystem Partner Enabling, Intel, said, “Through our collaboration with Acronis to integrate Intel Threat Detection Technology into their cyber protection solutions, customers of all sizes that utilise Intel vPro can perform frequent and highly performant memory scanning. This is a great benefit for our mutual customers as we help them stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated threats.”
Further, Michael Suby, research vice president, Security and Trust, International Data Corporation (IDC), said, “As the IT world grows in sophistication and continues its migration to the cloud, more stress has fallen on security teams with less-integrated technology, creating complexity and unintentional blind spots in security systems. According to a recent IDC survey of 1,015 security professionals in North America, this is particularly the case for smaller organisations who are less equipped to effectively operate separate products from multiple vendors or benefit from a position of strength in negotiating with multiple vendors. As such, they are more likely to resonate with an integrated hardware and software approach to endpoint security.”
Acronis provides its users with the ability to take back control and overcome complexity with an integrated platform which results in greater operational efficiency. By implementing an integrated solution like Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, organisations can reduce the time that security teams spend on various operational activities, lower training costs, reduce the complexity in their environment by minimising the number of tools managed, and ultimately drive business growth.
