Business Technology Insights

Fighting Ransomware Attacks

Cyber-attacks have become an international concern, as breaches in data security and sabotage are causing increasing damage to individuals, companies, and government. The notable attacks reported earlier in the year involved malicious software, or ransomware, that inscribed itself on around 300,000 computers and affected people in over 150 countries[i]. Unluckily, we knew many companies that fell victim to the malware attack waves, which compromised data and threatened to perpetually block access to data unless ransom was paid. We saw how many were compelled to adopt strict cyber security measures to curb the cyber threats.

Image source: Unsplash

In less than 6 years, most organizations will make a transition to the Cloud infrastructure. This is not much of a surprise since the benefits of going to Cloud vs staying on-premise are well known. Cloud not only saves you a significant amount of time and money but changes the ways your business operates. This can potentially end up getting new opportunities and finding new revenue streams. Not something any business should ignore. Cloud implementation also comes with different risks for security.

Image source: Small Business Trends 

As a small business owner, you have to think about cybersecurity and know how to guard against cybercrime. Small businesses are targets of almost 43% of all cyberattacks. As technology evolves, so are the threats to your business. Let's discuss some types of cyberattacks you need to keep an eye on.

 Image source: Small Business Trends

Your business collects and stores various data: personal information about you and your employees, or information about your customers, partners, clients, and suppliers. All of this business data makes you a good target for a data breach. Someone unauthorized might have an interest in stealing your intellectual property, or financial information in a cybersecurity attack.

Image source: Wired

We've talked about guarding your business against cybercrime, but what about your  personal cybersecurity? It's most likely improving - you know you should be using strong and unique passwords, two-step verification wherever possible, and you're looking out for phishing emails. But new threats are right around the corner and you should consider finding more ways to secure yourself against cybercriminals.

Image source: Harvard Business Review

Whether your business operates in the private sector or government, your cybersecurity is exposed. To fight against cybercriminals, you need to have a strong understanding of who they are, how they operate, and how common cyberattacks can be prevented, and even change your thinking on policy.

A week doesn't go by without hearing another story about cybersecurity attacks and hacks.

This latest wave of cyberattacks via the WannaCry / Decrytor attack (via Wired UK), follows along the recent Google Docs attack (via Gizmodo) that made waves. While the Google Docs attack was quite sophisticated in building a way to access accounts using email - the recent wave using what appears to be an exploit exposed by the recent NSA leak, has been far more focused on cash than data (But may not have made as much money as you believe, as reported by the Guardian).