Ransomware is a growing problem for all businesses, regardless of size with a new attack hitting a company every 40 seconds. The worrying thing is these attacks don’t seem to be slowing down rather they are spreading at an alarming rate and the profitability of these attacks are attracting new would-be hackers.
What is a ransomware attack?
A ransomware attack takes the form of malicious software that locks a device and then demands a ransom to unlock it. The software is usually sent in an email disguised as a seemingly innocent attachment, once opened it encrypts the hard drive making it impossible to retrieve your valuable data. There is also no guarantee that once a ransom is paid you will get your data back.
How to help a company hit by the ransomware attack?
A number of recognisable companies have been hit by this type of attack in recent years including the NHS, Mondelez, FedEx, Nissan, the Department of Homeland Security and unfortunately one of our own customers. Our customer was hit in the past month and initially, they feared the worst.
The first thing they noticed was a message alerting them that their files had been encrypted, followed by the request to pay to get their data back. This can be a distressing time for any business but fortunately, this customer was well aware of the risks of ransomware and had selected us as their backup and disaster recovery partner.
As their partner, we take care of everything for them, from running and checking their backups to upgrading them ourselves as they are extraordinarily busy and did not have the time to do this themselves. We take backups of disk images for this client every 24 hours making the copies we store as up to date as possible.
Which meant when they experienced the attack we were able to erase the corrupted files and restore everything to the way it was before they experienced the attack. We managed to help them and have them back up and running in a couple of hours.
This customer did not have to pay these hackers a penny and learned a valuable lesson about email attachments.
Are you looking for help with ransomware issues in the UK?
Disasters in IT can take many forms from file corruption, fires in the office, ransomware attacks or even an employee accidentally deleting an entire database, accidents happen and we have all been there. At Backup Systems we have seen it all and we are trusted to provide backup and disaster recovery solutions for businesses across the UK. To learn more about our services download our guide here.
