Could Your Backups & Data Center Survive A Ransomware Attack?
It seems to be almost every day we hear about a business or organization becoming the victims of a ransomware attack and demands. Social networks, hospitals, schools…some days it looks like a plague that is spreading around indiscriminately. And hackers are rolling in Bitcoin and raking in millions.
Tallied around the globe…it is in the billions of dollars.
Ransomware attacks are always very devious and genius in their simplicity. A user inside the targeted business gets tricked into clicking on a link or a file. Most of the time, this is through a phishing email or file download from the web. The link directs them to a location that automatically downloads the ransomware.
Once that happens, it will start propagating. The file contains malware which always instantly encrypts your valuable data. It will then demand cash or Bitcoin in exchange for the password to re-access your information.
If you have no money, then you get no password and ultimately no data back.
Hopefully, the targeted business was diligent with their backups. They may be able to fall back on those backups easily. If so, they may not end up paying any cash or Bitcoin. However, the federal agencies, like the FBI, reports over $209 million sent to hackers within the first quarter of 2016. Understand this $209 million was just the first three months of the year. It was also just those payments from the United States. Also, this just counts those organizations that came forward and reported the ransomware attack.
In the year 2015, it was only $25 million. So you can see a very notable difference in the number of attacks as well as reporting.
Don't count on your backups, the ransomware may have already infected them too.
Sometimes the backup systems and your COOP fail, and the information can’t be retrieved. This failure is often real in cases where the design and process have been in use for years, and just one thing may have failed at that time.
In some of the instances, the targeted business incorporates a backup that will restore data; however, it doesn’t provide everything they need for a full recovery.
Finally, and the most typical reason numerous businesses get forced to pay the ransom:
If the backup gets impacted by the ransomware attack and is infected, it becomes useless as a recovery option and the only two remaining choices will be to pay or lose the information forever.
Each and every hour. typically days, spent attempting to recover the business data is a drain on valuable business resources and in several cases, leads to large revenue loss.
The only defense is to detect and block the malware before it will infect its first system, then continue the protection with a comprehensive backup and recovery strategy for all workstations and servers.
The state of ransomware among small business report.
Do you have different suggestions and comments regarding ransomware attacks? If so, I kindly request that you share them. You may leave your comments, ideas, and queries below, or Contact Me.
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