IT downtime prevalent among businesses

The rate of businesses experiencing downtime rose from 50% in 2020 to over 75% in 2021, while system crashes were the most common reason for downtimes, followed by human error, cyberattacks, and insider attacks, reports TechRadar. An Acronis study revealed that while 70% have implemented automated patch management, only a few adhere to the 72-hour time frame for addressing vulnerabilities. Eighty-two percent also said that their organizations' endpoints had ransomware protection and remediation but attacks still occur daily and demanded ransoms have been increasing every week. Meanwhile, half of businesses reported spending less than 10% of their IT budgets on security and only 23% spent over 15% but 78% have been found to implement up to 10 different security solutions, indicating the need for organizations to consolidate their security tools. "As the entire world is increasingly at risk from different types of attacks, accelerating to universal all-in-one solutions is the only way to achieve truly complete cyber protection. Attackers don’t discriminate when it comes to means or targets, so strong and reliable security is no longer an option, it’s a necessity," said Acronis Vice President of Cyber Protection Research Candid Wuest.