Ransomware attacks are becoming increasingly common. It is estimated that these attacks cost the business community more than 16.5 billion euros in 2020. Due to the large number of people working from home via sometimes vulnerable connections, cyber criminals have only encountered more potential victims in recent years.
Victims of ransomware attacks often do not initially realize the perseverance of the attackers. They also do not know what vulnerabilities there are in their own cybersecurity policy or what the costs are of recovery after an attack. Once the attack has taken place it is too late to do anything about it.
It is therefore important as a company that sufficient preparations have been made for this type of attacks, which will only increase in size, frequency and recovery costs.
Ransomware is the fastest growing form of malware and is becoming increasingly profitable for criminals. It has now reached the point where hackers offer ransomware-as-a-service where criminals can lease the ransomware. This ensures that anyone, even people with no IT knowledge, can carry out this type of attack.
In addition, the attackers are also taking their approach more seriously. They are working increasingly smarter and strike, for example, when staffing levels are low, such as on weekends or in the evenings. As a result, the average dwell time has increased, or the time between the burglary and the deployment of the ransomware. This gives cybercriminals extra time to look around the network, infect additional devices and discover data. In addition, they have shortened the time between the breach and the moment they gain access to systems, known as break time.
Why ransomware attacks are so effective is because the attackers strategically choose their targets and respond to current events. Companies from all sectors can be affected, but there are a number of favorites. For example, medical institutions that are under pressure because human lives are at stake. Service providers with valuable customer data are also popular targets, as are government institutions that often work with outdated systems.
It is known that ransomware attacks are harmful to your organization. The hackers can take down your systems with all the consequences that entails, such as dissatisfied customers, a damaged reputation, data leaks and potential ransom payments. It is not recommended to pay the ransom because doing so does not guarantee that you will get the data or access back. There is also always a risk that the devices cannot be completely cleaned. The latest ransomware can persist at the hardware level and thus strike again. This means that you will have to deploy additional hardware to get your staff back to work and online.
It is now known that a ransomware attack can cause major damage to your organization. There are plenty of steps that an organization can take to protect itself against this. An important argument to remember in the fight against ransomware is the following: the costs of preparing for an attack are often much lower than the costs involved in recovering from a ransomware attack.
Source: compute
