Posts Tagged ‘ransomware’
Many SMBs believe they’ve “checked the box” on cybersecurity by installing antivirus, training staff on phishing, and applying patches. While these steps are critical, they represent only part of the picture. To stay resilient, organizations must understand the following overlooked threats and proactively defend against them before they become costly breaches.
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Unfortunately, when engaging with a new client, I almost always encounter two issues. First, the client thinks that their backups have been configured optimally. Upon review, I find that they are not. Second, the client thinks that they have good backup data. Upon testing, I find that they cannot restore from backups they think completed “successfully.”
To help avoid these common, yet dangerous misconceptions, this article identifies three critical issues related to backups: immutability, an air gap, and proper testing and verification. At the end, I provide three simple questions to ask your tech team to ensure your data is properly secured.
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Cybercriminals and hackers are rarely shy about the methods they use to attack their victims. Many of them are more than happy to share how they broke into a business’s network or how they walked away with thousands of dollars after successfully extorting a business owner whose company is now destroyed.
There are new stories out there to get your blood boiling as cybercriminals work to ruin people’s lives and livelihoods. These criminals don’t care what kind of damage they do. They only care about one thing: money. If they can get away with it – and many do – they’ll keep on doing it.
It’s up to the rest of us as business owners (and employees) to stay at least one step ahead of these cyberthugs. The single best way to do that is to stay educated on the latest threats. The second-best way is to stay up-to-date with the latest technology designed to combat cyber-attacks.
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If I go into your house and take all of the things important to you, lock them away in a safe and I am the only one with the key and I tell you that you will have to pay me to get the stuff back, that’s ransomware.
Cybersecurity experts are warning that by 2021, businesses will fall victim to ransomware every 11 seconds. That’s down from every 14 seconds in 2019.
Can you imagine being one of those businesses?
Sometimes persistent ransomware attacks feel like the flu. As soon as security experts find a defense against one strain, a new and more deadly version appears. All making it harder to defend against and certainly difficult to keep up.
With cryptic names like WannaCry, Petya and SamSam, leadership all too well have familiarized themselves with names of attacks and many even know someone who have fallen victim to the latest strain.
While ransomware campaigns have targeted pretty much everyone, they are becoming more tailored to your industry, finding technical vulnerabilities to exploit your network and your software and customizing their attacks to target specific roles within your organization. Unlike flu epidemics, there is less of a cycle or timing of when catching a virus is more or less likely. For ransomware, infections are becoming more persistent day after day.
Ransomware attackers are targeting everyone. In 2018, for instance, attackers were breaching networks in technology, manufacturing, financial and healthcare industries at alarming rates. All industries showed an uptick in the sophistication of attacks targeting each industry.
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