What Is Ransomware?

Ransomware is a type of vicious malware that takes your computer and files captive by locking you out of being able to open or control them, until a sum of money or "ransom" is paid to the hackers. These types of attacks cause massive losses of time, loss or corruption of data/files/information, theft of intellectual property, and even a complete wipe of everything on the entire network. Ransomware is not one strain of malware, rather it comes in many different forms and each one is specific to attack certain items on the device or network. There are some strains of ransomware that are designed to attack PCs and others that are designed to go after Macs.

What You Should Know About Ransomware

  1. Per Towergate Insurance, 82% of Small Business Owners believe they will never be the target of a Ransomware attack. However, 55% of Small Businesses have experienced a Ransomware in the past year.
  2. An IBM and Poneman Institute study showed that the average cost of a Ransomware attack to a company increased to a staggering $3.79 million. This included the costs affiliated to locating, replacing and/or the loss of business by customers who no longer want to work with them.
  3. The average cost for every file or piece of Intellectual Property (IP) that is held for ransom and not recovered, is approximately $158 per item.
  4. Approximately 60% of companies who lose their data due to a Ransomware attack will be forced to shut down within 6 months of the infection.
  5. Per a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) report, Ransomware attackers took in a little more than $1 Billion in 2016. They eclipsed 2015’s grand total ($24 Million) within the first fiscal quarter of 2016 of $209 Million.

How You Can Protect Your Company

  1. Backup Everything! Backing up your files to a cloud service or off-site, remote server is something that is highly recommended and should become Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) in every company. This will ensure that you will be able to access your files even if you are hit with a Ransomware attack.
  2. Have Trust Issues. Don’t take the word of people who send you emails to tell the truth about who they are or even why they are contacting you. Make sure that you know exactly who the sender is; you know that they are sending you something and confirm exactly what that is. Cyber terrorists will mask themselves by spoofing their email address to look like a family member, coworker, Amazon, the IRS, and millions of more disguises.
  3. Invest in The Tools to Get the Job Done, Right! There are many software tools that you can invest time and money into to better protect your company against a Ransomware attack. Make sure that you choose the correct tools and people to use them. An example would be to choose the New England IT Partners to provide your company with anti-Ransomware and Cyber Security solution.
  4. WH@7 Did You Say? One of the easiest ways for your employees to protect themselves and the information that they have access to, is to have them create passwords that are unique and not used in their personal life. Part of your company’s SOP’s should be that they need to create a unique password that is only used for their professional access and it should be changed every 6 months or so.
  5. Access Denied! We all love that feeling when you are granted access to something or somewhere that others usually are not, because it gives us a sense of power and entitlement. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case far too often when we look at a company’s network. We notice that most, if not all, of the users have complete accessibility to surf the web and do anything they want, uninhibited. Too much access is a bad thing because it can lead to your employees finding themselves in places they don’t belong. Make sure you employee access to only necessary websites for their jobs.