[By Andy Hill, Executive Vice President, Nexsan]
No IT professional is unaware of the staggering risk of ransomware. In 2023, recovering from a ransomware attack cost on average $1.82 million—not including paying any ransom—and some organizations get hit more than once.
If you’re hit, you generally have to choose between paying that ransom or restoring your data yourself. Nearly every expert advises you not to pay up, for a variety of reasons, most importantly, the cybercriminal may not honor their promise to release your data. (So much for ‘honor among thieves.’) In some cases, once they know the victim is willing to pay, they increase the ransom amount.
Secondly, criminals can take their sweet time giving victims the encryption keys, meaning you don’t get immediate access to your data even after paying.
In reality, it’s better to restore the locked files from backups. While this has historically been most effective, today, cybercrime rings are technologically sophisticated organizations, capable of rendering backups unusable. Recent research from Veeam said backups were targeted in 93% of ransomware attacks, and this was successful in 75% of cases.
When backups are disabled prior to or during a ransomware attack, there’s not much you can do besides pay the ransom.
If you are relying on your own ability to recover from a ransomware attack, there are some ways you can better prepared, and issues to watch out for.
The fallout from a ransomware attack on City of Dallas in May ..
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