Ransomware: What It Is and How to Survive It

You know technology is central to your business, but what if you couldn’t access the very systems and data that make your day to day operations possible? You’d be looking at serious downtime, financial loss, and customers would be inconvenienced leading to damaged relationships. Sounds bad right?

These are just some of the problems you’ll face if you fall victim to a ransomware attack, however you can also expect much worse. This includes being completely locked out and asked to pay a ransom that doesn’t guarantee restored access to your files – and this number is often in the millions.

While it’s a frightening reality many businesses face, there are steps you can take to reduce your risk and achieve peace of mind. Education is key, so today, we’re looking at what ransomware is, whether you should pay the ransom, how you can prevent these attacks, and why robust security measures are critical to build your cyber resilience.

What is Ransomware?

Ransomware is a form of malware (malicious software), and poses a serious risk to every business as attacks climb in frequency. In 2024, 59% of organisations faced a ransomware threat.

So, what do they entail? Cyber criminals access your systems before encrypting or locking files and data. Once this is done, they demand a ransom be paid so you can restore access with a decryption key. Cyber criminals may also demand the ransom to stop the leaking or selling of sensitive data (known as double extortion).

Now for the important question if you fall victim: should you pay? The answer is no, as you can’t trust that access to your data or files will be reinstated. Paying the ransom can also have serious consequences other than financial loss, making your business vulnerable and setting you up to be the target of a future attack.

What Can Lead to a Ransomware Attack?

To conduct a ransomware attack, cyber criminals need initial access to your systems. This access can be gained through vectors such as software vulnerabilities (with 32% of attacks made possible by this), compromised credentials, or phishing emails that include malicious links or attachments.

What Are the Consequences of a Ransomware Attack?

Ransomware attacks can result in serious short and long term consequences for your business. This includes: 

• Reputational Damage

Becoming the victim of a cyber attack can take a serious toll on your business’ reputation, affecting client relationships and trust. This can have far-reaching effects, impacting both current and future clients.

• Financial Loss

While you shouldn’t pay the ransom, that doesn’t mean you’ll completely avoid financial loss in the event of an attack. You’ll need to cover the cost of recovery measures, downtime (with most victims experiencing around 24 days of downtime), and could even face regulatory fines if a data breach involving sensitive client information has occurred. 

• Data Loss
  

If you can’t regain access to your data or files and you don’t have reliable and recent backups, data loss can be a devastating consequence. If you need to recreate the lost files or data, this leads to even more downtime and subsequent costs.

How to Increase Your Cyber Resilience

It’s critical to maintain robust cyber security and implement best practices to avoid falling victim or lessen the impact of a ransomware attack. You should:

• Prioritise Education

Educating your team around ransomware and attack vectors like phishing emails is critical to reduce the risk of falling victim to threats. This can be achieved through security awareness training, which keeps your staff up to date with best practices and in the know about current threats.

• Install Updates as They’re Released

Installing the latest software updates is critical to reduce vulnerabilities, protect your files and data, and lower the risk of ransomware. If you ignore these updates, cyber criminals can target and exploit weaknesses that would have otherwise been patched. Our advice? Install updates as soon they’re available to stay secure.

• Back Up Data

Data backups are critical to mitigate data loss and avoid downtime. Ensure you’re regularly backing up data to on-premises and cloud solutions, and testing these backups to ensure they’re reliable.

• Work With a Trusted Managed Services Provider (MSP)

As ransomware threats evolve, ensuring you have robust and multi-layered defences is critical, and working with the right MSP can keep your business safer in a risk-laden environment. At Insource IT, we can level up your cyber security measures with next-generation firewalls, email security, PenTesting, vulnerability scanning, application whitelisting, security operations centre, and more so you can get peace of mind and maintain business as usual.

How Insource IT Can Help

If you’re ready to empower your business and minimise the risk of ransomware threats, our team of experts can help. Reach out today here and we can organise a time to chat about your business, cyber security needs, and how we can fortify your security with innovative technology tools and solutions.