Ransomware Alert for Organizations: Here and Now

By CIOReview | Tuesday, March 13, 2018

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The world is on a level where digitization has swept across the interconnected network. Business, markets, and services run alongside the main matrix of computation of data and information. Consequently, information about a company or organization is a crucial asset in the era of information technology.

The information cosmos is sophisticated and important beyond measure and therefore, it is imperative to protect information with the right cybersecurity measures. Cybercriminals are well aware of the importance of data to the organizations. In order to mitigate cyber threats and intrusion, Cybersecurity keeps a check against attempts made on stealing or exploiting data and information.

When talking about sophisticated cyber threats, the ransomware infestation is something that has been threatening the cyber world of information resources for over a year now. WannaCry and Petya have been the major malware deployed in cyber attacks, which infect the main data reserves of an organization and encrypts every file into a compressed pack which only the attackers can crack. From a remote location and anonymity, the organization’s all-valuables are in control of mere cybercriminals. The criminals hold it for ransom against a huge amount.

During the time ransomware started attacking the datacenters, people were not prepared. It was a new type of hackware that was immune to the latest patches and security measures. Nevertheless, almost every organization have, at present, reported that their systems are up-to-date and ready to confront any such attacks.

The lack of a specially implemented anti-ransomware was one of the key problems, reports a survey. This was the cause of attacks that occurred twice on an average on the companies and service grounds. A first attack should have been enough for all the organizations to team up and put up a ransomware firewall in place. But they slumped up from the alert and were attacked again. Over $133,000 were spent by the companies to meet the ransom and repairing the disintegrated systems, which incurred a huge loss to the economic status of the organizations at the very operational stages.

However currently, almost half of the companies situated globally have successfully held up a structure and are keeping a check on cybersecurity solutions to avoid another attack and the software development companies, including the all essential Windows, have rolled out patches for future attacks. Most importantly, organizations are staying alert to protect their infrastructure and data from the ever-changing ransomware and hackware.