Ransomware will ruin your day
Cyber criminals are working overtime to find new and creative ways of taking your money. While worrying about someone stealing your identity is still important, it has taken a backseat to the newest, and most effective, form of online thievery – ransomware. Because of the complexity of the threat, NetData has partnered with ransomware remediation specialist Coveware.
For those that aren’t familiar with the term, ransomware is a form of digital extortion where criminals lock up all of your files on your computer and hold them for ransom. Unfortunately, ransomware is real, and it is real nasty. We have worked with a few local businesses that fell prey to a ransomware attack. In a couple cases, we were able to get them back up and running with clean data using their daily backups. In a couple of other cases, the businesses didn’t have good recent back ups and had to pay the ransom to recover their files.
Through our partnership with Coveware, we can help your business recover from a ransomware attack when payment must be made. NetData is the ‘boots on the ground’ team during the recovery process with Coveware handling all communication with the attacker, including making the payment via Bitcoin and obtaining the decryption tool. You can find a write up on Coveware in Forbes here and the company Website here.
NetData highly recommends businesses obtain a cybersecurity insurance policy, one that specifically covers ransomware. One case we worked in 2018, the end cost to recover their files topped $41,000. Thankfully they had a cybersecurity policy in place. If this had been a smaller business, it could easily have put them out of business.
We cannot stress enough the importance of maintaining and testing your onsite and offsite backups. Just having a backup isn’t enough, it needs to be set up in a way that it doesn’t fall victim to the encryption, too. NetData has developed a way of defining the backup infrastructure to greatly minimize the chances of backups becoming compromised. Nothing is 100%, but through our method of obscuring the backup system, we can make it very hard for the attacker to get to your backup data.
For information on how we can help you maximize your backup safety net, please give us a call at 850-837-7638.
