- There have been more than 4,000 ransomware attacks every day since 2016, according to an interagency U.S. government report.
- If you pay the ransom, you’re sending out a dangerous message to criminals that you will play ball. The inevitable consequence is that they’re far more likely to target your sector or attack your organization again in the future.
- An issue that’s often missed in this scenario is that paying the ransom usually means you’ll receive a functioning decryption tool. This doesn’t instantly return things to normal, and you will have to allocate more resources to recover properly. Apart from the risk that the tool doesn’t work, you may face a logistically tricky task in simply entering all the keys on your various devices. Once this is done, there’s still the pressing concern of tracing and mitigating the original breach that led to ransomware gaining a foothold in your network.
- There are several preventive measures and precautions you can take to reduce the risk of a ransomware attack:
- Maintain a proper backup
- Patch continuously
- Maintain an up-to-date asset list
- Plan and rehearse recovery
- Consider cyber insurance
– Steve Durbin | June 1, 2021
