What You Need to Know About Ransomware

One cybersecurity firm estimates that extortive attacks now cost small and medium companies at least $75 billion in expenses and lost productivity each year.

Maybe you heard about the latest high-profile ransomware victim – the City of Atlanta. After hackers demanded a $50,000 payout to restore the city’s data, estimations put the total expense to at least $2.7 million dollars. Even for a city as large as Atlanta, $2.7 is a lot of taxpayer dollars. Following the attack, the city now must spend time and resources rebuilding their security from the ground up:

“That’s absolutely construction work. What they’re looking to do is not revamping the system, they’re starting from scratch and going from the ground up again,” Hunt said.

It’s understandable for a civic entity to be a little behind in their security maintenance. Often things (like hardware and software) are slow to change. Additionally, you’re working with a lot of “band-aids” as they upgrade systems. However, that’s no excuse for poor security.

Preventing ransomware attacks in your business or organization

Most people want to know how they can prevent their critical data from being held captive by hackers. Really, like any other scam of the month, protecting your business from ransomware is the same as protecting it from anything else. Here are a few specific ideas:

1. Education and training

We know that your employees and staff are often the ways these viruses get in. Hackers are getting smarter and trickier with their ploys to get their software into your system. Adequately training your staff to recognize and avoid these ploys can go a long way in protecting your organization.

2. Backup and security plan

Do you have a backup system in place? What would you do if you had a server failure or were attacked by malware or ransomware? Do you keep up with security updates and patches? If you do have a plan, when’s the last time you updated it? The only way to ensure that if you are attacked and can get back up and running quickly is a comprehensive plan and top to bottom protection. There’s no magic pill to protect you completely, but you can put a plan in place and be prepared.

3. Get professional help

Even with full-time IT support in your organization, you can always use additional help when it comes to planning and executing security and backup. Outside contractors have their finger on the pulse of the latest scams and prevention techniques. Additionally, they lend additional eyes and brainpower to protecting your mission-critical data. Getting help may cost you money, but it’s better to pay for the prevention than the cure!

Want to learn more? Savant Solutions can help you train, prevent, backup, and plan security for your organization, no matter the size. Contact us today!