BackupAssist announced the general availability (GA) launch of BackupAssist Classic version 11 (v11). Engineered to aid clients in remaining at the forefront of cybercrime resilience, BackupAssist v11 includes critical enhancements across its CryptoSafeGuard ransomware solution, password protection, and S3 compatible destinations, as well as the introduction of its groundbreaking Cyber Black Box. 

Cybersecurity Ventures predicts global cybercrime costs will grow by 15 percent per year over the next five years, reaching $10.5 trillion USD annually by 2025, up from $3 trillion USD in 2015. In a recent announcement it stated, "This represents the greatest transfer of economic wealth in history, risks the incentives for innovation and investment, is exponentially larger than the damage inflicted from natural disasters in a year, and will be more profitable than the global trade of all major illegal drugs combined."

BackupAssist Classic v11 enables its users to address this already enormous and rapidly escalating cybercrime threat, with the following new features and functionality:

• Cyber Black Box - collects and stores logs and data that can serve as additional evidence in digital forensic investigations. This is important because after suffering a hacking incident or other security breach, businesses need to investigate the root vulnerability, remediate it, and possibly lodge a cyber insurance claim. The evidence provided by the Cyber Black Box can assist a business in submitting a cyber insurance claim, and recouping expenses resulting from customer notification, data restoration, and IT repairs, as well as associated legal fees. In addition, Cybercrime Forensic Investigators now have another tool that can help them to trace and prosecute cyber criminals, around the globe.
  

• CryptoSafeGuard Enhancements - expands shielding of protected files from ransomware to include BackupAssist configuration and Cyber Black Box forensic logs. This is important because it provides extra mitigations against ransomware from corrupting backup configuration files or attempts to sabotage the backups.
  

• Password Protection and Administration Console - allows the administrator to set additional administration console access passwords. This is important as it provides further mitigation against malicious actors from sabotaging backup configuration to effectively delete backup data.
  

• Support for S3 Compatible Cloud Storage for Offsite Backups - provides additional options for where users can store backups in the cloud. This is important because today, comprehensive backup strategies should include offsite cloud backup. This new feature makes it easy and affordable to backup to any/multiple cloud(s).
  

"Cybercrime continues to grow at an alarming rate -- crippling businesses, schools and even governments," said Linus Chang, Founder and CEO, BackupAssist. "BackupAssist has long helped our customers to survive, recover seamlessly and avoid paying expensive ransoms as a result of a cyber attack. And now with BackupAssist Classic v11, customer capabilities have been further fortified."

"And, while backups clearly play a critical role in surviving such attacks, today they are not the only consideration," Chang continued. "If you're unfortunate enough to be hacked, a potentially costly, arduous and stressful future awaits. A thorough and effective clean-up relies on having the right forensic information available. The Cyber Black Box assists in this process by providing investigators with valuable forensic information, useful in identifying and remediating the root vulnerability(ies). Better evidence means faster and more accurate investigations - which means lower recovery costs, and better prevention against repeat incidents."

"One of the biggest issues with any cyber attack is having the right log files enabled and stored securely, not to mention being able to quickly access and search for the relevant log entries during a crisis.  Even large organizations struggle to do this," said HackHunter CTO and Co-Founder, Mike Thompson, one of the world's leading experts on WiFi, IoT and cybersecurity. "Having the contextually relevant logs securely encrypted and backed up along with the data is absolute genius."

"As today's business world becomes increasingly digitized, cybersecurity is no longer just a ‘tech' issue with our clients - it has moved to the forefront of virtually every business decision and plan," said Joan Chandler, Co-Founder and CEO, C&C Software. "Enterprise organizations with more generous budgets have long held an advantage in their ability to deploy innovative technologies as protection against bad actors. The updates in BackupAssist v11, including the unique Cyber Black Box, level the playing field and enable SMEs to enjoy these same capabilities and more in the face of increasingly sophisticated and aggressive cyber criminals."

Existing BackupAssist clients can upgrade to v11 free of charge, as part of their current BackupCare subscription. Expired BackupCare subscriptions can be renewed here: https://www.backupassist.com/classic/renew-backupcare. New customers can learn more and review pricing options here: https://www.backupassist.com/classic/pricing. Free 30-Day Trial Licenses can be requested here: https://www.backupassist.com/classic/downloads.