What is ransomware attack?
Ransomware is a type of malicious software which hacks the computer system and refrains you from accessing your own computer. It asks to pay money and until you pay the money it does not allow you to access your data. This is termed as ransomware attack. In a ransomware attack, victims may receive an unsuspicious email with some link or attachment, which is attached with the malware. Upon opening such emails, their systems and devices get infected with such malicious software. You will come to know that your system is infected only after losing the access. All your data gets encrypted and messages displayed on systems asks to pay money to get the decryption key including instructions on how to pay ransom money. It usually asks to pay in bitcoins, which is a virtual money.
About the latest Ransomware attack
On May 12th, 2017, the world witnessed a massive cyber attack which is being claimed as the biggest ever cyber attack in the history of the internet. It was bigger than Dyn DDos. A powerful ransomware, named as WannaCry, was storming throughout the web. The epicenter of the damage was Europe. The malware WannaCry identified the vulnerability in Windows OS, which was discovered by NSA (National Security Agency). It was later publicly revealed by the infamous hacking group, Shadow Brokers. It infected 200,000 systems within few hours. Big organizations like Renault and NHS were also affected with it.
Ransomware targeting and attacking online businesses
Even if a single person clicks on a link attached to malware, the entire system gets collapsed. Usually small or medium sized businesses do not tend to backup their data and do not pay much attention to cyber security for online businesses. Lack of dedicated IT support leads to compromise on cyber hygiene. Investing in cyber security for online businesses, irrespective of its size is crucial and affordable too. This investment is very small rather than losing the valuable and huge database and information built by an organization over the years.
Often it takes a huge amount of time to recover or recreate the lost resources. So small businesses tend to pay the money for ransomware and solve the problem. But such businesses then encourages more of such cyber attacks, which makes such businesses fall prey to attackers again and again.
How to protect your online businesses from ransomware attacks?
Any online business has a business plan and also a data strategy. A good strategy includes a thorough understanding of all information they have, the location to store it, how to access it and who can access it.
Being an IT service provider for 12+ years, we recommend adopting a software system that is safe and secure to prevent threat detection, intrusion, and prevention. Backing up the software and the data is also very crucial, which helps to preserve your valuable data even if your system could not prevent cyber-attack.
In the case of cyber attacks like ransomware attacks, businesses must first contact their IT vendors to handle such situations. The role of an IT vendor is to isolate systems, bring them offline, wipe the systems and execute the process of restoration.
Krify is a multinational IT service provider and we understand that online businesses are the nerve-endings of the economy which explains the necessity of making such businesses cyber-empowered. It is important to understand the solutions available to protect the businesses from cyber attack.
Online businesses can choose cloud-based or physical data backups which depends on how much data is important and of use for the organization and what is the frequency required to back up the data of the business. We recommend keeping the multiple copies of the data on multiple sites.
Contact us today for all your IT related needs. Our core competencies include website development, mobile app development, SEO and digital marketing.
