Majority of Businesses Pay Ransomware When Infected

According to this ZDNet article, the majority of businesses who have been infected with a ransomware virus pay the demanded amount in order to get their data back. If you aren’t familiar with ransomware, we’d highly recommend getting acquainted with it as it could be devastating to your data and potentially to a business.

In short, ransomware is a virus that encrypts your personal data with an unbreakable (in most cases) algorithm and demands payment to get the data back. It runs silently and only shows itself after it completes the encryption. Most ransomware viruses search out for plugged in devices (such as external drives) and shared network folders/drives to also infect. The preferred method of spreading the virus is with attachment in emails. These emails go as far as personalizing the information to make it seem very legitimate, such as a résumé.

The scary part about this article is how many business pay the criminals! This means they don’t have proper backups running, as that’s the best way to recover from this type of virus. On top of that, there’s no guarantee that you’ll get your data back after you pay the ransom… you just hope that they hold up their end of the bargain.

Choosing a backup plan like Carbonite may seem expensive until you’re put into a situation where you may not get critical data back. On average, the ransom demanded is a little over $700, with 1/5 of business reporting amounts over $1,300. Another thing to consider is the potential loss of time/money when trying to recover from the virus.

We recommend Carbonite because it’s an off-site backup with great customer support. It’s used for much more than just virus attacks. Files lost from hardware malfunction, devastating weather events, fire, or simply an accidental deletion can be retrieved with Carbonite. We’d certainly still recommend using a daily on-site backup to an external drive, as having more than one form of backup means a better chance for a full recovery.

As much as we’d like ransomware to go away, it won’t. It’s here to stay and while the viruses are getting more sophisticated, one thing stands true: a reliable backup is the best method of recovery.