Acronis

Acronis Cyber Protect is an enterprise cyber protection platform that unifies backup, ransomware protection, EDR, patch management and disaster recovery in a single agent and a single console. There are two deployment models: the subscription-based Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, and Acronis Cyber Protect 16, in which you install the management server on your own network. Sora Yazılım provides licensing, deployment, policy design and managed services for both models.

The rationale for this unified approach is measurable. The Verizon 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report, which examined 22,052 security incidents and 12,195 confirmed data breaches across 139 countries, reports that ransomware was present in 44% of breaches, rising to 88% in SMB breaches (Verizon DBIR, 2025). The same report cites the fact that SMBs are less likely than large organizations to hold current and readily accessible backups as one of the reasons they are disproportionately targeted. In other words, backup is not an IT hygiene item — it is a security control in its own right.

Acronis is a Swiss company founded in Singapore in 2003 that has evolved from classic image backup software into a cyber protection platform. The distinguishing position of the product family is captured in the phrase "backup + cybersecurity in a single agent": the same agent takes backups, runs as an anti-malware engine, acts as an EDR sensor and deploys patches. The aim is to reduce the number of agents, the number of consoles and post-incident recovery time all at once.

What does the Acronis "single agent" approach deliver in practice?

The gains fall under three headings: a single agent installation with a single policy set, seeing both the threat and the clean recovery point in the same console, and a lower risk of reinfection during post-attack recovery. The official Acronis Advanced Security data sheet lists this last item explicitly; the pack covers anti-malware scanning of backups held in the Acronis Cloud and the prevention of reinfection by updating antivirus definitions during recovery (Acronis Advanced Security data sheet, 2021). In environments that run a separate backup product and a separate EPP, this step is usually manual — and usually skipped.

The autonomy of the agent is also part of the architecture. According to the official documentation, once a protection plan has been deployed to a machine, the agent continues protection operations for 30 days even if communication with the management server is lost entirely (Acronis Cyber Protect 16 Web Help, 2026). At branch offices, field sites and production-line locations with weak connectivity, this means the backup does not stop silently.

The backup data itself is encrypted as well. Acronis uses the AES algorithm in Galois/Counter (GCM) mode with a randomly generated 256-bit key; that key is encrypted with AES-256 using the SHA-2 (256-bit) hash of the password, and the password is stored neither on disk nor in the backups (Acronis Cyber Protect 16 Web Help — Encryption, 2026). The operational consequence is clear: if the password is lost, the backup cannot be restored. During deployment we put the key storage and handover procedure in writing together with the customer.

What is the difference between Cyber Protect Cloud and Cyber Protect 16?

Short answer: Cyber Protect Cloud is a subscription-based, multi-tenant service with a cloud console; Cyber Protect 16 is the on-premises deployment in which you install the management server on your own network. The capability sets are not identical — some features exist only in the cloud, others only on-premises. The table below is compiled from the official Acronis comparison list (Acronis Support KB 73376, 2025).

Three practical conclusions follow from the table. First, if you want EDR and cloud-based disaster recovery from Acronis, the cloud deployment is required; Advanced Security + EDR and Acronis Disaster Recovery appear in the official list as cloud-only capabilities. Second, if you are going to use a tape library, deduplication or an Acronis Storage Node, the on-premises deployment is mandatory — and the Standard edition is not enough, the Advanced edition is required. Third, for environments that do not need the security modules, the backup-only Acronis editions are a simpler starting point.

On the licensing side, the deciding factor is the workload type. According to the current Acronis licensing documentation, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace workloads are covered only by Backup Advanced licenses (plus Email Archiving for Microsoft 365); the Universal License exists only in the Advanced and Backup Advanced editions; and for public cloud VMs, one Per-VM license covers three virtual machines. Azure Stack HCI, KVM, Nutanix and Citrix Hypervisor environments are supported only with Advanced or Backup Advanced, while the Backup Standard edition is no longer sold (Acronis Support KB 73387, 2026). Producing a workload inventory before the price conversation directly reduces license waste in most projects.

How does immutable storage work against ransomware?

Immutable storage prevents backup files from being deleted or modified for the defined retention period — even if an administrator account is compromised. In a threat landscape where ransomware groups target backups first, this control is the very chance of recovery. Since September 2024, Governance mode with a 14-day retention period has been enabled by default on all Acronis-hosted storage, across all Partner and Customer tenants (Acronis Cyber Protect 16 Web Help — Immutable storage, 2026).

There are two modes, and the choice can produce irreversible consequences. In Governance mode, immutability can be turned off and the retention period can be changed. In Compliance mode, immutable storage cannot be turned off, the retention period cannot be changed and there is no way back to Governance mode (same source). For this reason we enable Compliance mode only for data sets whose retention policy is legally fixed, and only with written approval.

The technical prerequisites are equally clear. In the cloud deployment, Acronis-hosted or partner-hosted storage running Acronis Cyber Infrastructure 6.0.1 or later and a protection agent of at least version 24.01 (build 24.1.37195) are required; in the on-premises deployment, ACI 6.0.1+ and agent 16.0.37277+ are mandatory. Only backups in the TIBX (Version 12) format are supported (same source). In an environment running older agent versions, saying "we turned immutable storage on" is not enough; the agent version inventory has to be audited.

Building the 3-2-1 rule (three copies, two different media, one copy off-site) on Acronis requires destination diversity. In Cyber Protect 16 the official backup destinations are cloud storage, a local folder, a network folder (SMB/CIFS/DFS), Acronis Cyber Infrastructure, an NFS folder, Secure Zone and SFTP; if no port is specified for SFTP, port 22 is used. Backup to FTP servers and to folders with anonymous access is not supported (Acronis Cyber Protect 16 Web Help — Selecting a destination, 2026). On the cloud side you can also back up directly to public cloud compatible storage without installing an additional gateway component; this option requires a Local backup storage quota (Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud User Guide, 2026).

How do you meet your RPO and RTO targets with Acronis?

Define the target first, then choose the technology: backup frequency determines RPO, and the recovery method determines RTO. The official Acronis Advanced Disaster Recovery data sheet explicitly states a target of "RPO and RTO of less than 15 minutes" thanks to the RunVM engine (Acronis Advanced Disaster Recovery data sheet, 2022). This is not a level you can reach with classic file restore; it requires a ready-to-run copy in the cloud.

The intermediate step is Instant Restore. A virtual machine is started directly from a disk-level backup that contains the operating system; while the machine runs, its disks are emulated from the backup and storage is consumed only for the changes that occur. Acronis recommends keeping this temporary machine for no more than three days and then deleting it or converting it into a permanent virtual machine (Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud User Guide — Instant Restore, 2026). This method is used to keep the service running until the full restore is complete.

Network design affects RTO too. With Acronis Disaster Recovery, up to 23 local networks can be extended to the cloud over a secure VPN tunnel; a connection can also be established in cloud-only mode without deploying a VPN appliance (Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud User Guide — Disaster Recovery, 2026). The add-on is licensed per workload and usage is measured in compute points: a 1-year subscription includes 2,000, a 3-year subscription 6,000 and a 5-year subscription 10,000 points; 2,000 points correspond roughly to two weeks of failover and test usage per year, while DR storage is unlimited (Acronis Support KB 73387, 2026).

The cheapest way to shorten recovery time is testing. According to the IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025, 65% of organizations have still not fully recovered from a breach; among those that say they have fully recovered, 76% needed more than 100 days, 26% needed more than 150 days and only 2% recovered in under 50 days (IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report, 2025). That is why we validate the DR runbook with a test failover at least twice a year.

There is a difference in method for physical machine recovery as well. According to the official Acronis recovery table, physical Windows and Linux machines can be recovered both from the console and with bootable media; physical macOS machines can be recovered only with bootable media; and bootable media is mandatory for bare-metal recovery and for recovery to an offline machine (Acronis Cyber Protect 16 Web Help — Recovery cheat sheet, 2026). When recovering to different hardware, if the operating system does not boot, Universal Restore brings the system up by updating the drivers and modules that are critical for boot. In hardware refresh projects this tool cuts migration time from days to hours.

Which capabilities do the Acronis Advanced add-on packs add?

The Cyber Protect Cloud core delivers backup and baseline protection; the Advanced packs are layered onto that core modularly and are enabled only on the workloads that need them. This structure lets you go deeper on critical servers without moving the entire fleet onto the most expensive pack. According to the official data sheets, the main capabilities added by the packs are as follows.

On the Advanced Email Security side there is a measurable performance commitment: email content is unpacked recursively and checked by multiple engines in under 30 seconds, with a clear verdict returned within an average of 10 seconds; the engines include Perception Point's CPU-level analysis technology (Acronis Advanced Email Security data sheet, 2023). Advanced Management, in turn, combines patch management with backup; fail-safe patching takes an automatic system backup before the patch is applied, making an outage caused by a failed patch reversible (Acronis Advanced Management data sheet, 2023). Patch coverage includes hundreds of third-party Windows applications.

We also owe you one warning: on the Acronis Cyber Files Cloud side, the "Files Sync and Share" and "Advanced Files Sync and Share: Notarization and eSignature" functions reached End of Life as of December 31, 2025. Mainstream support ended on that date, sales of Advanced FSS end on June 1, 2026, sales of FSS end in September 2026, and extended support ends on December 31, 2026 (Acronis Support KB, 2026). For organizations using this module we are planning the transition now; a Microsoft 365-based file sharing infrastructure is the most practical alternative in most scenarios, and you can still back that data up with Acronis.

How does Acronis perform in independent tests?

The most recent verifiable result comes from AV-TEST. In the Windows 11 business user test run in the January–February 2026 period, Acronis Cyber Protect 25.11 scored Protection 6.0/6.0, Performance 6.0/6.0 and Usability 6.0/6.0, winning the "TOP PRODUCT" award with 18.0/18.0 points. The TOP PRODUCT threshold is 17.5 points (AV-TEST, 2026). In other words, the protection engine is not merely a component "bolted on next to a backup product".

On the EDR side the picture is more nuanced. In the advanced EDR test AV-TEST conducted between December 2023 and January 2024, Acronis Cyber Protect (the Advanced Security + EDR pack) received the "Approved Advanced Endpoint Detection and Response" certification; two attack scenarios were used, and in the second scenario data exfiltration over the command-and-control channel was not detected (AV-TEST, 2024). This result supports positioning Acronis EDR as an economical layer integrated with backup, and complementing it with a separate EDR or XDR product in environments that require deep threat hunting, network visibility and 24/7 response.

The combination we build in practice is this: backup, immutable storage and recovery stay with Acronis; if deeper detection and automated response are needed at the endpoint, a standalone EDR such as FortiEDR is brought in; and at the email layer, Trend Micro Email Security is evaluated as a genuine alternative. We determine the right combination not by brand preference but by your incident response capacity and workload profile; you can review the full portfolio on our solutions page for comparison.

What does Acronis provide in the KVKK and Turkey context?

Section 3.6, "Backing Up Personal Data", of the Personal Data Security Guide published under KVKK (Turkey's data protection law) sets out three concrete expectations: if data is damaged, destroyed or stolen, the data controller must resume operations as quickly as possible using the backed-up data; developing data backup strategies against ransomware is recommended; and only the system administrator should be able to access backed-up personal data, with data set backups kept strictly off the network (KVKK Personal Data Security Guide).

Acronis has controls that meet all three items: Instant Restore and disaster recovery for resuming operations quickly, immutable storage and behavioral protection against ransomware, and a cloud destination plus role-based access management for the off-network copy. The guide's "must be kept off the network" wording marks the compliance gap we encounter most often in environments that back up only to a local NAS — in a ransomware scenario, a NAS on the same network is not a backup, it is a second victim.

On data residency, Istanbul (Turkey) appears under the "Acronis Cloud DC" heading in the official Acronis data center list; the network spans the Americas, Europe/Middle East, Asia-Pacific and Africa, and the Cyber Protect Cloud product page describes it as "more than 50 locations" (Acronis Data Centers, 2026). For organizations that want to close the cross-border data transfer discussion from the outset, this is a workable option; the region is chosen during deployment and moving later is costly.

There is extra context for organizations that operate in Europe or work with partners in scope of NIS2. ENISA Threat Landscape 2025 examined 4,875 incidents between July 1, 2024 and June 30, 2025; the leading initial access routes were identified as phishing (60%) and vulnerability exploitation (21.3%), and 53.7% of the incidents involved essential entities in scope of the NIS2 Directive (ENISA, 2025). If phishing is the number one entry route, then the email layer and patch discipline carry the same priority as backup.

Backing up cloud workloads is part of compliance as well. Google Workspace protection covers Gmail mailboxes, Calendars, Contacts, Google Drive and Shared drive data, and up to 5,000 items per company can be protected without performance loss (Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud User Guide, 2026). On the Microsoft 365 side, the Acronis Cyberthreats Report H1 2025 reports that malware was found in 1.47% of the Microsoft 365 email backups examined (Acronis, 2025). Scanning the backup itself matters for exactly this reason: a recovery point you believe is clean can bring the attack back.

As the Acronis channel partner in Turkey, Sora Yazılım provides licensing, deployment, migration from your existing backup solution, protection plan design, immutable storage configuration, DR runbook preparation and ongoing managed services. We design the backup architecture for virtualization, container and CI/CD environments together with our DevOps and infrastructure services. Tell us how many workloads you have, your RPO/RTO targets and your legal retention periods, and we will prepare a proposal sized with the right edition and the right add-on set — request a quote from our contact page.