Ransom or not to Ransomware?

Somethings in our industry are bloody obvious, well to be fair from our point of view to quote my Vulcan friend “it’s purely logical”.?However, what seems logical to us, often doesn’t seem logical to you.?But that is a good thing, that is why you have us to keep you on the right path.

When it comes to Ransomware, trust me you DO NOT want to find yourself the victim of it.?There are a number of reasons why not, but a couple that seem to be a common response to “no thank you” are:

• We’re too small to be a target.
• We’ve got everything backed up, so why bother?

Well I will deal with both points.?With the first, everyone is a target, in fact smaller businesses like yours and mine are now a bigger target than ever!?Why??Well the big boys and girls have already had plenty of high profile attacks and have had their fingers burned.?This means budgets and awareness have been raised and defences bolstered as a result.?So now the hackers are moving on to the smaller and more vulnerable targets.?Businesses like yours and mine.

The second point is really the focal point on my video above.?Even if you have everything backed up, hopefully into the cloud, the key point is??The time it takes to restore a system.?Depending on how many people using computers in the business there are, it can easily take days or weeks.?That doesn’t even take into account the time for your business to recover on top of restoring it.??

The conclusion is??An aged old expression…?Prevention is better than cure.

We’re offering a Ransomware protector to our support clients and about 2/3 are snapping it up so far.? At only ￡1 per computer, per month, I have no idea why businesses are not always immediately saying YES, so I guess we still have some educating to do.?Especially as our larger clients have leaped on it, knowing how important this line of defence is.?I fear the others just don’t feel they will fall victim.?I hope they don’t, but experience tells me otherwise. It can happen to any of us.

If you would like to know more or discuss any concerns about Ransomware, please comment below, DM me, schedule an appointment via our website or call 01903 259923.

You can also watch the rest of my catalogue of videos (including the bloopers) on my YouTube channel.?Just search for Northstar IT.