Terms of service

1. About these terms

These terms of service set out the basis on which Soteria Cloud makes this website and its services available. Soteria Cloud is a South African cyber-resilience enabler supplying backup, disaster recovery, cyber protection, email security and related services to managed service providers, resellers and business customers.

Please read these terms carefully. They contain provisions that limit our liability and place obligations on you. Sections 17, 18 and 19 in particular affect your legal rights.

2. Definitions

• “We”, “us”, “our” means Soteria Cloud.
• “You” means the person or organisation using this website or our services.
• “Partner” means an MSP, reseller or affiliate that resells or delivers our services to its own customers.
• “Service agreement” means any signed order form, partner agreement, quotation or statement of work between us.
• “Customer data” means the data you or your customers place into, or protect using, the services.
• “Platform” means the technology through which the services are delivered, including Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud and our supporting local infrastructure.

3. Acceptance and changes

By accessing this website or using our services you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, please do not use the website or the services.

We may update these terms from time to time to reflect changes in our services, technology or legal obligations. The “last updated” date above shows when they were last revised. Where a change materially affects an active service, we will give reasonable notice to the account contact before it takes effect. Continued use after that date constitutes acceptance.

4. Use of this website

The content on this website is provided for general information and does not constitute technical, legal or compliance advice. While we take care to keep it accurate and current, we make no representation that it is complete or free of error, and you should not rely on it as the sole basis for a decision.

Product descriptions, capability summaries and guides describe the services in general terms. The specific scope, inclusions and commercial terms that apply to you are those recorded in your service agreement.

Links to third-party websites are provided for convenience. We do not control those sites and are not responsible for their content or practices.

5. The services we provide

We provide cloud backup, disaster recovery, endpoint and email protection, and related cyber-resilience services, together with the enablement and support described in your service agreement. Depending on the service selected, data may be held on Soteria-hosted infrastructure in South Africa or on vendor-hosted infrastructure. Which applies to you is confirmed at the point of order.

We may improve, modify or replace features of the platform over time. Where a change would materially reduce a capability you depend on, we will give reasonable prior notice.

6. Order of precedence

If there is a conflict between documents, the following order applies, from highest to lowest:

1. a signed partner or service agreement between us;
2. an accepted order form, quotation or statement of work;
3. any service-specific schedule or service level agreement; and
4. these terms of service.

These terms apply in full where no signed agreement covers the point in question.

7. Accounts and access

You are responsible for:

• the accuracy of the account and contact information you give us;
• keeping account credentials confidential, and enabling multi-factor authentication where it is available;
• all activity carried out under your account or the accounts of your administrators;
• managing the tenants, users and permissions you create for your own customers; and
• notifying us without delay at [email protected] if you suspect unauthorised access.

8. Partner and customer obligations

Cyber resilience is a shared responsibility. We provide the platform, infrastructure, enablement and support. To get the intended outcome, you must:

• select and configure protection appropriate to the workloads that matter;
• set recovery objectives with your customers and configure retention to match;
• monitor backup and protection status and act on alerts and failures;
• test restores periodically rather than assuming a healthy status is proof;
• keep agents, systems and credentials current; and
• hold all rights and consents needed for the data you place on the platform.

9. Acceptable use

You may not use the website or the services to:

• break any law, or infringe the rights of any other person;
• store, transmit or distribute unlawful material, or material you have no right to hold;
• knowingly introduce malware, or attempt to gain unauthorised access to any system, tenant or account;
• probe, scan or load-test our infrastructure without our prior written consent;
• resell, sublicense or provide the services to a third party except as a contracted partner;
• scrape, copy or republish website content at scale without our written permission; or
• interfere with the integrity, performance or availability of the platform for other users.

We may investigate suspected breaches and take proportionate action, including suspension where there is a risk to other users or to the platform.

10. Availability, support and maintenance

We work to keep the services available and performing reliably, but we do not warrant uninterrupted or error-free operation. Any committed availability target or support response time applies only where it is expressly recorded in a service level agreement forming part of your service agreement. Nothing on this website creates a service level commitment on its own.

Planned maintenance is scheduled to limit disruption and notified in advance where practical. Emergency maintenance may be carried out at short notice to protect security or stability.

11. Your data and recoverability

As between us, you or your customers retain ownership of customer data. We process it to deliver the services, to provide support and as your instructions and the law require.

Retention periods, storage location and recovery capability are determined by the service you select and the settings you configure. We are not responsible for data that was never included in a protection plan, for a restore that fails because of a misconfiguration on your side, or for recovery objectives that were never defined or tested.

On termination, you are responsible for retrieving customer data before the end of any retrieval window recorded in your service agreement. After that window, data may be deleted in the ordinary course.

12. Third-party technology

Parts of our services are delivered using third-party technology, including the Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud platform, and depend on third-party data centres, connectivity and software. Use of those components may be subject to the relevant vendor terms, which we will make available on request. We remain your point of contact for the services we supply, but we are not liable for a vendor changing, withdrawing or discontinuing a component beyond our reasonable control.

13. Fees, billing and taxes

• Fees, billing frequency and payment terms are those recorded in your service agreement, order form or quotation.
• Unless stated otherwise, amounts are billed in South African Rand and are exclusive of value-added tax and any other applicable duties.
• Usage-based services are billed on measured consumption for the billing period.
• Prices may be adjusted on reasonable written notice, or where a vendor or exchange-rate change affects the underlying cost.
• Overdue amounts may attract interest at the maximum rate permitted by law, and we may suspend services on notice while an account remains in arrears.
• You must raise a billing query within 30 days of the invoice date so that we can investigate it properly.

No pricing appears on this website. Any figure quoted to you is valid only for the period stated in the quotation.

14. Intellectual property

All intellectual property in this website and in our services, including text, graphics, layout, guides, the Soteria Cloud name and our logos, belongs to us or our licensors. Nothing in these terms transfers any of it to you.

You may view, download and print website content for your own internal business use. Any other reproduction, distribution, adaptation or commercial use requires our written permission. Third-party names and marks, including Acronis, belong to their respective owners and are used for identification only.

If you give us feedback or suggestions about the services, we may use them without obligation or payment to you.

15. Confidentiality

Each party may receive confidential information from the other, including commercial terms, technical detail and security configuration. Confidential information may be used only for the purpose of the relationship, must be protected with at least reasonable care, and may not be disclosed except to personnel and advisers who need it and are bound by equivalent obligations, or where the law requires disclosure. These obligations survive termination.

16. Data protection

We handle personal information in line with the Protection of Personal Information Act and, where applicable, the GDPR. Our privacy policy explains what we collect, why, and how long we keep it. Our cookie policy covers cookies and analytics, and our data deletion instructions explain how to request erasure. Those policies form part of these terms.

Where we process personal information on a partner’s behalf, we do so as an operator on that partner’s documented instructions and in terms of the agreement between us.

17. Warranties and disclaimers

We warrant that we will provide the services with reasonable skill and care, using suitably competent personnel.

Beyond that, and to the maximum extent permitted by law, the website and the services are provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. We do not warrant that the services will be uninterrupted, that every threat will be prevented or detected, or that every restore will succeed in every circumstance. No security or backup solution can eliminate risk entirely.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits any right you have under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 or other law that cannot lawfully be excluded.

18. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, neither party is liable to the other for indirect, incidental, special, punitive or consequential loss, or for loss of profit, revenue, goodwill, business opportunity or anticipated savings, however arising.

Our total aggregate liability arising out of or in connection with the services in any twelve-month period is limited to the fees actually paid by you for the affected service in the twelve months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim.

These limits do not apply to liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any liability that cannot lawfully be limited.

19. Indemnity

You indemnify us against claims, losses and reasonable costs arising from your breach of these terms, your breach of the acceptable use section, your unlawful use of the services, or a claim by one of your customers that arises from your own acts or omissions rather than ours. We will notify you promptly of any such claim and allow you to participate in its defence.

20. Suspension and termination

We may suspend or restrict access, on notice where reasonably practical, if:

• an account is materially in arrears;
• there is a security risk to the platform or to other users;
• we are required to do so by law or by a vendor; or
• the acceptable use section is materially breached.

Either party may terminate for material breach that is not remedied within 30 days of written notice, or as otherwise set out in the service agreement. On termination, accrued fees remain payable, access to the services ends, and data retrieval is subject to section 11.

21. Events beyond our control

Neither party is liable for failure or delay in performance caused by an event beyond its reasonable control, including natural disaster, fire, flood, epidemic, war, civil unrest, sustained failure of national power or telecommunications infrastructure, or the act of a government authority. Payment obligations already accrued are not suspended by this section.

22. General

• Entire agreement — these terms, together with your service agreement and the policies referred to here, form the whole agreement between us on their subject matter.
• Severability — if a provision is found unenforceable, the rest remains in force.
• No waiver — failing to enforce a provision does not waive the right to enforce it later.
• Assignment — you may not assign your rights without our written consent. We may assign to a successor in a reorganisation or sale of business.
• Relationship — nothing here creates a partnership, joint venture, employment or agency relationship between us.
• Notices — notices to us must be sent to [email protected]. Notices to you are sent to the account contact on record.

23. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Republic of South Africa. The parties will first attempt to resolve any dispute in good faith through discussion between senior representatives. Failing resolution within a reasonable period, the dispute is subject to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the South African courts, unless the service agreement provides for arbitration.