The integrated solution, which brings Sophos’ Intercept X deep learning technology onto Arcserve appliances, will be sold through the Arcserve channel.

Data protection vendor Arcserve and cybersecurity provider Sophos have announced a new OEM alliance which is explicitly focused on the problem of ransomware. The partnership sees Sophos Intercept X Advanced for Server integrated with the Arcserve Appliance Series, in a solution that can be deployed in 15 minutes. The solution goes to market through Arcserve, and can be ordered now.

“What makes me excited today is that this is a new step in data protection,” said Oussama El-Hilali, Arcserve’s Chief Technology Officer. “We believe we have the ultimate solution for ransomware. We are confident this will put a dent in it.”

In addition to threatening headlines from the news indicating that cybercrooks have moved from extorting individual machines to holding the state of Texas for ransom, studies indicate that the cost of ransomware continues to rise as attacks get more dangerous. The two vendors referenced a report from Cybersecurity Ventures predicting that the global cost of ransomware will reach $USD 11.5 billion this year and $USD 20 billion USD by 2021, with an attack on businesses every 14 seconds by the end of this year.

“We are focused with this solution in addressing the gap that has been created through the growth of ransomware activities,” El-Hilali added. “That has now reached epidemic proportions, with each attack costing an organization about $140,000. In addition, since storage is distributed and not consolidated like endpoint storage of the past, it makes storage more vulnerable.”

“For the past few years, we have seen what we perceive to be a trend of ransomware becoming the new normal,” said Francois Depayras, Sophos’ vice president of OEM sales and alliances. “We have developed Intercept X, which uses Deep Learning and AI to protect from malicious activities.”

DePayras said that integrating this technology with Arcserve’s own anti-ransomware capabilities provides a strong offering that customers and partners both know are certified to work together seamlessly.

“This partnership makes a lot of sense,” he said. “Rather than have an admin pick and choose what other license to use, these two companies have created an integrated solution, so that out of the box, admins know they will be protected with specific tuning for that appliance.”

From Arcserve’s perspective, El-Hilali said the Intercept X technology differentiated Sophos from other potential endpoint security partners.

“From a technology point of view, we find Intercept X provides some key features that are very efficient for this type of situation,” he said. “The Sophos technology provides us with the opportunity to intercept encryption activity that’s not legitimate. This is what makes it unique and we are happy to be the first to address this specific need.”

There are also non-technical synergies.

“When we looked at this partnership, there were a number of companies we could have worked with,” said Clark Brown, Arcserve’s VP Channel Sales and Strategic Alliances. “However, from a channel perspective, we share similar distributors and a large number of joint partners. So from a business perspective, there was a natural fit.”

The integrated solution which can be ordered now, is available on the newest Arcserve Appliances.

“The software is pre-loaded onto the appliance, so no additional certification on Sophos is needed,” Brown noted. “We will take the first level calls because they run on Arcserve hardware. In the past, we would have asked the customer to contact Sophos if there was an issue with the software.”