Cyberattacks have increased exponentially as many organizations made the move to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. While there have been increases in distinct types of attacks, incidents of ransomware attacks increased by 150% in 2020 over the previous year. The ransoms paid by victims more than tripled during that same year.
There is no end in sight as these attacks become more sophisticated in their ability to paralyze major corporations, privately held companies, municipalities, and even hospitals. This begs the question, is your business ready for a ransomware attack?
Reducing Your Risk of a Ransomware Attack
These nine steps can help reduce your risk of a ransomware attack and minimize the risk for damage if an attack were to be successful.
- Review your company’s incident response plan, and if needed, update it to assign specific roles for action if an attack occurs.
- Take the time to go over your company’s cyber insurance policy to determine what it will cover ransom-wise, and whether it is enough.
- Enable multi-factor authentication on all company accounts, including all media accounts and service accounts, and make sure that strong spam filters are used.
- Ensure that senior management has access to a secure texting app in the event that your company’s email systems are affected by a cyberattack.
- Conduct training sessions to educate your employees about phishing emails and increase awareness of how hackers will try to trick them into clicking dangerous links or downloading malware.
- Screen your employees, like those who have administrative rights to your computer systems, to identify those who might orchestrate an inside attack or be willing to work with outside attackers.
- Assess whether there is a need to have a reputable forensic firm conduct a preemptive threat hunt to identify data security events or vulnerabilities.
- Review the protocol and cybersecurity programs that key vendors use, especially those that handle your company’s critical or sensitive data.
- Regularly test your backup systems to ensure they are working, up-to-date and kept segregated from your company’s other systems to prevent them from being included in a ransomware attack.
At this time, there is still very little that law enforcement can do once a business has been victimized in a ransomware attack. Therefore, your company needs to take a proactive stance to protect itself and its stakeholders from loss.
About United Business Systems
United Business Systems specializes in simplifying the complexity and management of office technology solutions for over 7,800 organizations nationwide. Services include Managed Print, Document Management and IT Services. Products include MFPs, Copiers, Printers and Wide Format Printers. UBS’s headquarters is in Fairfield, NJ with branch offices in Moorestown, NJ, Manasquan, NJ and New York.
For the latest industry trends and technology insights visit UBS’ main Blog page.
