Ransomware continues posing a serious threat to businesses. IT support can keep your business protected by removing ransomware. A recent article from The Atlantic presents estimates of the staggering losses companies sustain when this malware takes hold of their devices and blocks access to their data.
The FBI’s estimate is that between January to March of this year alone, ransomware led to hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.
Keep in mind that this is a conservative figure, as many companies and individuals may not even report ransomware attacks to the authorities.
Along with the ransom payments that companies sometimes make to cyber criminals to regain access, other ransomware costs include reductions in productivity, missed sales opportunities, extended downtime, and losses in customer trust.
How can IT support professionals help? By removing ransomware and keeping your date safe.
One of the key ways to minimize the impact of a ransomware attack is to have data backups available on a system that remains uninfected by the malware.
If your backups are intact, and you can retrieve and restore your data from them easily, you’ll be much less likely to suffer costly prolonged downtime. You’ll be able to restart your business operations more easily and continue meeting your own needs and customers’ demands.
IT support professionals can work with you by removing ransomware, ensuring that you have reliable copies of your data, and that they stay out of reach of malware. For example, one of the ways that ransomware can compromise your data backups is if you have all of them in an external drive that’s attached to a computing device when it gets infected. However, if you retain copies at another location, such as in the cloud, they’re more likely to stay safe.
Don’t underestimate the crippling damage you can suffer from ransomware attacks. Sometimes the losses are unsustainable.
