Protect your Company from Ransomware Attacks
Ransomware Attacks are targeting Chicago Businesses
Chances are if you’re reading this article it’s because you’ve gotten hit with a ransomware attack. Recovery is probably pretty vital to your business and you stand to lose a lot if your data is not recovered. We are first going to discuss what your options are, and then discuss what you can do to prevent getting into this situation in the future.
Ransomware Attack Recovery: Check Your Backups
First and foremost, check your backups. It’s easy to forget that you even have backups in such situation, but backups are a vital part of ransomware attack recovery. In this day and age of automatic cloud backups, you may even have your data backed up without realizing it. Windows 10 is set up to automatically backup user files to OneDrive, Android phones and ChromeBooks automatically backup their data to Google Drive, and Apple products automatically backup to iCloud.
Of course, you don’t want these backups to become corrupted by the ransomware attack. If you haven’t already, immediately stop the syncing process so that you don’t end up overwriting your cloud backup with the ransomware’s encrypted version of your data. With backups of your data, it’s easy to simply reinstall your operating system and restore your data from backup.
Ransomware Attack Recovery: What to Do if You Don’t Have Backups
If you don’t have backups of your data, though, it gets trickier. You may need to pay the ransom to get your data restored. If you can’t pay the ransom, you can try decryption software designed to restore your data from ransomware attacks. This software is very hit or miss, though, and there is a 50/50 chance of it working to restore your data.
As a last resort, you can try contacting us to restore your data. We can use more advanced decryption methods to attempt to restore your data. Please be aware though that this, too, may fail.
Ransomware Attack Recovery: Prevention
Ransomware attack recovery starts with being prepared before a ransomware attack occurs. If you are prepared ahead of time, then ransomware doesn’t stand a chance against harming your business. As you may have guessed, this starts with having backups of your data.
Keep your own encrypted backups both stored in the cloud and stored offline. This way even if ransomware manages to infect your online backups, you still have offline backups it can’t touch. Encrypting your backups also prevents anyone from gaining access to sensitive business data.
Of course, the best case scenario is one in which ransomware doesn’t have a chance to infect your business network at all. So make sure you are using the latest security software that is equipped to prevent ransomware from ever getting its hooks into your system. Keep this software updated as well.
Along with using up to date security software, use up to date operating system software. Older operating systems are full of security holes that ransomware loves to exploit. The first ransomware in fact was trained to take advantage of businesses that were still using Windows XP, because Microsoft was no longer releasing security updates for it. If you are using an older operating system, now is definitely the time to update it.
Along with using an up to date operating system, make sure you are regularly applying updates and security patches. Just like ransomware loves to exploit older operating systems, it also likes to take advantage of operating systems that haven’t been updated and patched.
Another great step you can take towards ransomware prevention is getting us to do a full audit of your network to patch up any security holes. While security software and up to date software provides good basic protection, there still may possibly be holes in your network that could let an attacker slip through and install ransomware. A security audit will let you know what those holes are and help you seal up your network completely, preventing that from being an issue.
Ransomware Attack Recovery: Success!
If you follow all of these steps, you will be a ransomware attack recovery pro. Ransomware will not stand a chance against harming your business! Make sure that your security software and operating system are fully up to date, keep plenty of both online and offline encrypted backups, and get a security audit done so that your network can be completely secured. You will never have to worry about ransomware - or any malware - ever again.
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