Ransomware has been the most trending news recently. Many major organizations have been hit by a ransomware attacks, disrupting their everyday operations. These attacks have become so common that it comes as no shock that these are increasing day by day.

Recent Attacks

One of the most recent attacks were on the Tribune Group. The attack affected the print editions of Tribune Group in several states. The first sign of the attack was discovered when the editors could not send documents to the printing department. Backup to azure can be used to backup your data and prevent your data from these online attacks. 

Another recent attack happened at Ohio hospitals. The attack immediately affected the service in the emergency rooms. Several ambulances were sent to nearby hospitals while some systems were taken offline to prevent further spreading of ransomware. 

The good news in this attack was that it was handled very well and loss of patients’ data and other information was prevented. Also, with the help of multi-layered security, further damage and paying the ransom was avoided. 

The attack on China is another recent ransomware attack. The attack had infected 100,000 computers and users were locked out of their systems, unable to access important files. For the first time, Ransom was demanded in Yuan for the instead of Bitcoin. The files were encrypted and 100 Yuan was demanded as ransom for them.

Causes

Ransomware is basically caused by some vulnerability in the company’s system. Attackers look for week point in the company’s system and look for ways to exploit them. Other than this, human error also comes to play. Phishing emails are sent to random employees (usually lower tier ones) and upon clicking those, their systems are compromised. The next thing they know, they are locked out of their systems and without proper policies and backup plans, the ransomware virus spreads abruptly throughout the systems.

The Impact

Ransomware, whenever and wherever hits, hits hard. Companies usually have to pay a huge amount of ransom to these attackers in order to access their systems and data. Users are ‘locked out’ from their systems and basic day to day operations are effected as employees can’t do their work. They usually sent home or asked to helplessly wait on their workstations. 

This costs a company a huge amount of lost. In terms of both, costs and operations. This severely effects business continuity of a company. Depurate to get their data back, companies have to pay theses cyber-attacks a huge amount of money (usually in bitcoins) so that they can continue operations.

Downtime

Companies suffer a significant amount of downtime, which can range from a couple of day to a couple of weeks. It depends on how well a company deals with these attacks and what policies are in place for such incidents. Companies who follow efficient planning and policies suffer less downtime as opposed to the companies who don’t have such policies in place. 

Companies have lost millions of dollars to these cyber-attackers and have lost valuable time due to downtime because of these attacks. 

Preventive Measures and Backup

As of now, there is now way of avoiding ransomware attacks. With recent success numbers they are most likely to keep coming. Although there is no way of stopping these form knocking at your door, companies can follow preventive measures to ensure that their door remains shut to these attacks.

Employee Trainings

Employees should be given proper trainings on phishing emails and how to distinguish one. They, in no circumstances should be allowed to given personal confidential information of the company online without proper consent of the management.  If such an incident occurs, report directly to the management without initiating any response themselves. 

Refined Policies & Security

A company should have policies in place on what to do in case an attack or a similar event occurs. So they can come up with a solution without creating an unwanted panic.

All the systems should be secured and protected against malware and should have a better retention policy in place. Installing patches and running updated software can help a lot as ransomware is known for exploiting system vulnerabilities.

Backup

Even, if all the above are done properly, there is no guarantee that these practices are enough to stop ransomware from hitting your systems. So it’s better to be safe than sorry. Companies should have a proper backup solution in place so that they can quickly recover their data in a matter of minutes, if hit by a ransomware attack, and stop worrying about paying huge amount of ransom. This will save them a lot of money and will help in business continuity as well. Veeam backup appliance is used for backup and replication, Veeam Platform is the most complete solution for helping customers on the journey to improved data management to support better business outcomes.

Conclusion

Ransomware is on the rise and there is no evidence which shows that it will decrease any time soon so it’s best to be prepared. Preventive measures should be taken by every company to avoid such attacks and should have a proper backup system in place.