I’ve seen too many stories about ransomware recently. Ransomware has been around for a while, it isn’t a new phenomenon. However, it seems that not enough companies have properly prepared for a ransomware attack.
Ransomware is a highly malicious form of malware that encrypts your files to be unusable, unless you were to pay a ransom for your files/data. Upon payment, you may get your data back, but you also may not. They may just destroy it anyway. Do what you can to avoid this situation, but what happens if someone accidentally messes up and it happens anyway? Are you done for? No, and there is a rather simple solution:
Backups.
If you have regularly scheduled, automatic backups of your systems and your data, good for you. You are halfway there! Yup, only halfway. The intricacies of a properly backed up system can be complicated and numerous depending on how thorough you want to be. However, at a bare minimum, you need two factors:
- Creation of the backup
- Storing a copy of the backup somewhere other than where your systems are located
The problem with many backup systems we have seen is the violation of factor number two. With ransomware, if your backup files are on your production system, they will get encrypted and lost with everything else on your system. No use in having them there; you still lost everything.
With off-site storage (whether that be cloud based or a physically-separated storage), when ransomware hits, all you have to do is restore the backups of the systems and you are live again, with the data you had when your backups took place. This brings up another important issue:
- Have your backups set on a regular schedule
This result of your backup schedule is manifested when you try to restore the backup. Whatever work/additional data may have been done will be lost. Only the data up to the time of the backup will be restored. This is why regular backups are important. It is much easier to make up for one week of lost data than one month of lost data.
Are you prepared for a ransomware attack? Will your business be able to recover from an attack like this with ease, or will it cost you? Regardless of your current backup planning, we would love to talk about how to improve your planning further.