What’s the Buzz around Ransomware?

(Hint: it’s your business’ life insurance) 

Paying for life insurance can seem like an unnecessary and costly investment. The unpredictable nature of emergencies is exactly why you need a safety net in place, even when life –– or business –– is going smoothly.  

Alarming statistics:

• 66% of businesses attacked by hackers weren’t confident they could recover 
• The cost of data breaches will increase to $150 million in 2020

Disaster Recovery platforms are much like life insurance for your data and information. Various service providers store your business data on premises or in the Cloud. In the event of a security breach, you should be able to access your backup data within minutes. 

This is a critical service in an age of cyber-terrorism. In the past decade, ransomware attacks have been increasing annually by 350%. It is now a major tool for data hackers to extort money from corporations and local and state governments and small businesses.  

Ransomware is malicious software that encrypts the hacked data and makes it impossible for the owner to access it, until a ransom his paid. Some breaches steal or delete files, but with the development of Bitcoin, cyber thieves are attacking businesses from hospitals to corner stores. The demands for payment have increased alongside crypto-currency, since it is easier to exchange without leaving a trace to the hacker’s identity. 

Major cities like Baltimore, MD have been in the headlines as victims of recent ransomware attacks. In May 2019, about 10,000 of the city’s computers were hacked, and a ransom of $100,000 was demanded. The attack impacted essential services for two weeks, leaving city employees unable to use view their emails, hampering real-estate sales, and interfering with payments for expenses like water billing and parking tickets. 

Baltimore's Mayor Young refused to pay. “We're not going to pay criminals for bad deeds,” he explained, "as it is never guaranteed that the hackers will restore access to your data, or that it has not been tampered with." Still, the city was left with an estimated $18.2 million to pay in recovery, long-term losses and delayed revenue. 

The city of Durham, NC, on the other hand, was equipped with Rubrik ransomware as part of its cybersecurity strategy and its city government infrastructure has daily multiple back-ups. Hackers breached the city’s essential services data earlier this year. However, because this data was also stored in Rubrik’s recovery platform, the city was in the position to refuse to pay their hacker. They were then able to upload their data from its immutable source and get back to business within hours – and without economic or services impact.  

A disaster recovery platform is more than just a simple safety net. When a crisis strikes, its services minimize recovery time, prevent future accumulations of loss, and result in immediate and substantial savings. When your data is hacked, and you do not have Disaster Recover services, you end up paying far more in getting your data back, reputation damage and potential litigation with clients.