Ransomware Needs to be Managed for Better Data Protection

TORONTO - April 28, 2017 - PRLog -- The rise of ransomware has moved data protection up the business agenda as Ransomware needs to be managed for better data protection. What would you do if your data was encrypted by cyber criminals?

The trouble with ransomware is being able to recover the data from a backup either locally or in the cloud. The problem most organizations face is that when it comes to backing up data, they are not good at it or have not tested it properly.

According to a new survey from Black Hat 2016 (http://www.blackhat.com/us-16) conference, over 220 IT security professional's 34 percent were confident their organization or clients could recover from a ransomware attack without losing data.

The trouble with ransomware is that it takes advantage of human behaviour.  You can have multiple layers of IT security within your network however if a user opens an attachment with malware, there is a high risk that it will encrypt all your data.

Ransomware needs to be managed for better data protection because if you are hit, you have only two options. First one is to either pay the ransom to gain access the keys needed to decrypt that data or recover a copy of that data that have been hopefully backed up and tested.

Backups can be a challenge to organizations however it is becoming simple to back up data locally and the cloud.  It may be impossible to prevent a user to be fooled into downloading malware, however, there are measures that can be put in place to mitigate the damage these Ransomware attacks can cause.

Not worried about Ransomware? Here are some alarming numbers.

• 7% of cloud-based malware delivers ransomware
• 9% of malware-infected files found in cloud apps are shared publicly
• $209 million was paid to ransomware criminals in Q1 2016 (CNN report (http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/15/technology/ransomware-cyb...))
• 56,000 ransomware infections in March 2016, alone (Symantec (http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/media/se...))
• The average ransom demand is now $679 US (CNN report (http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/15/technology/ransomware-cyber-security/))
• Prior to a Ransomware attack, 4 out of 5 organizations are confident backup can provide complete recovery
• Email is the primary delivery vehicle for ransomware (Malwarebytes (https://www.malwarebytes.com/surveys/ransomware/?aliId=13242065))
• There was a 4x jump in Android ransomware (Kaspersky Lab (https://securelist.com/analysis/publications/75183/ksn-report-mobile-ransomware-in-2014-2016/))

Ransomware needs to be managed for better data protection and data protection is a process that needs to be managed.

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