From the Desk of Wil Buchanan: Moment of Truth…

Moment of Truth…

So you’ve been infected with ransomware and your data has become unusable. This is the moment of truth for any organization. Have you taken the proactive measures necessary to keep your doors open, or have you dropped the ball? It sounds harsh but it generally comes down to that.

If you’ve taken the proactive measures, you have a written action plan that you can immediately implement. You run the play and begin putting things back together. If you have neglected this preparation, the follow up conversation looks different and often involves blame, shame and rush judgement. Eventually this conversation will expand to include talk of paying the ransom to get your organization functional again. On a macro level, what is the effect on our market ecosystem of paying the ransom? Let’s look at the numbers. According to the 2019 Internet Security Threat Report by Symantec, they saw a 400% increase in the number of attacks from 2017 to 2018. A lot of that growth is due to the number of organizations that are paying the ransom. The other side effect is that your chances of being infected again also skyrocket. According to a report done last year by security company Sophos, most organizations that were infected once, were hit again a second time.

“Ransomware is not a lightning strike – it can happen again and again to the same organization.”

An organization that is not prepared will have no other choice but to pay the ransom.

How Can You Prepare?

1. Create a written plan. A time of crisis is not the time to come up with a plan. Gather trusted advisors. Hire a security expert. Come up with a plan.
2. Run a vulnerability report to see where your blind spots are. Prioritize the list. Systematically fix the holes based upon priority.
3. Test the plan to make sure that it works as planned.

Visit our blog for more ideas on how to prepare.

Wil Buchanan