Last year, 37% of businesses were a victim of a Ransomware attack, making these attacks one of the fastest-growing cybercrimes in the world. A Ransomware attack is when cybercriminals infiltrate your device or network and take your data by encrypting it. This means that all your data is still there, but you are unable to access it, giving cybercriminals all the power. They will then make demands for you to pay huge sums of money in order for you to be able to get all of your data back. They will most often threaten that if you don't pay up the fee (sometimes tens or hundreds of thousands) they will delete all of your data. Every single bit of it.
Being the victim of a Ransomware attack is extremely stressful for you and your entire team but along with the stress, you must worry about the cost of the ransom fee, reputational damage and downtown for your business. The average downtime experienced during a ransomware attack in 2021 was 22 days! That’s 22 days of work that your business has lost.
Official advice from experts tells people NOT to pay the ransom fee. But according to a recent study, a MASSIVE 97% of business owners who have already experienced a Ransomware attack in the past say that they would pay the fee quickly if they were victims again. This percentage shows you what a nightmare the whole thing is for any business.
Unfortunately, once the ransom fee has been paid by the business it is not guaranteed that the cybercriminals will give you back your data. Only 65% of data is restored after the fee is paid! This is a scarily low percentage. In addition to that, you may face further extortion. By paying the fee you are letting cybercriminals know that your business pays ransom fees, and you are more likely to fall victim again.
So, if businesses aren't meant to pay the ransom fee, what is the best way to deal with an attack?
Firstly (and most importantly), you should put in place the right security measures to try to prevent an attack from happening in the first place. The best way to do this is:
- Educate your people on cyber security and best practice
- Implement multi-factor authorization across all your applications
- Use a password manager
- Make sure all updates are installed quickly
- And you should always have a working backup in place – ideally one where older data is retained and cannot be changed
It is also strongly recommended that your business has a response and recovery plan in place in the event of a Ransomware attack. This has many benefits, not only will your business be able to respond faster, but it should also reduce the amount of downtime suffered as you’ve already considered exactly what needs to happen. This means that your business can get back up and running in no time, with very little damage.
This is what we are experts in. This is what we do. We help businesses increase their cyber security to reduce their chances of being affected. Let’s talk.
Until next time, keep fit and have fun!
(TYYV) The Yada Yada Version:
Ransomware attacks are bad for business and yada yada yada there are other ways to handle it other than paying the ransom fee the cybercriminals ask for.
