Combating the Rise of Ransomware
The rise of Ransomware. It’s one of the fastest-growing cyber threats, according to research from Cybersecurity Ventures, a new organization fell victim to ransomware every 11 seconds in 2021. It continues to be an extremely lucrative business, and as long as there is money to be made and accessible data to be stolen ransomware is not going anywhere, anytime soon.
Ransomware continues to be everyone’s problem – from governments to corporations and even individuals. The pandemic has further increased opportunities for cyber attackers as employees access company resources from myriad devices/networks not managed by the corporate IT team. And once they’ve found their way into your business and encrypted your data and files, ransomware criminals will demand substantial sums of money to restore them.
Data is the lifeblood of every organization. Being locked out of your own files for even just a day will have impacts to your business operations. But given that ransomware takes most victims offline for at least a week, or sometimes months, the losses can be significant. Systems go offline for so long not just because ransomware locks the system, but because of all the effort required to clean up and restore the networks. And it is not just the immediate financial hit of ransomware that will damage a business; consumers become wary of giving their data to organizations they believe to be insecure.
Businesses and organizations of all sizes, across all industries are at risk for these attacks. In a recent webinar with Danny Pehar of Forbes Magazine, he shared with us the following “Cyber Target Equation”: Sensitive Information + Limited Budget + Limited Resources = A perfect target.
Danny also shared 95% of all breaches begin with some form of human error or lax security procedures, this truly drives home the importance of creating a cyber aware culture. Despite the ongoing rise of ransomware, thorough prevention procedures, data protection and the proper security trainings there is still hope to remain security. Since ransomware has become so multi-faceted, so too must our protections. Ransomware penetrates organizations in multiple ways, so fighting it requires a multi-front strategy. No single technology or best practice alone can prevent it. We must think of ransomware defense as an ongoing, layered process.
In this blog series we will continue to share expert feedback, best practices and procedures to help combat the rise of ransomware. Be sure to check out the sure to check back regularly for new posts. In the meantime, you can check out our latest Webinar: Combating the Rise of Ransomware with Next Dimension, Danny Pehar & Forbes Magazine.