Ransomware has proven it’s an epidemic of massive proportions…
Over the last week, several new ransomware attacks have gone public. This includes attacks against Houston County Schools of Georgia, Ava School District in Missouri, CHI Health of Nebraska, and Berry Family Services in Texas. In addition, Wood Ranch Medical, located in Simi Valley, California was infected, leaving its networks corrupted beyond repair. This has left patients looking for an alternative medical facility, as Wood Ranch will close indefinitely in December 2019.
It’s terrifying to think, one cyber incident can distruct your entire business. Your livelihood is gone, all because of one hack.
Ransomware, the malicious software that encrypts files and demands a payment to restore them, has been spreading across the nation at epic proportions throughout 2019. Wood Ranch Medical is not the first, and won’t be the last, business to close as a result. Unfortunately, businesses at all levels tend to put cyber security on the back burner, until it is too late. Now is the time to be proactive, before you find yourself locking your operational doors for good.
Proactive Measures
In order to effectively thwart cyber attacks, PC Matic encourages businesses, and home users, to do the following:
- Deploy a security solution that utilizes application whitelisting
- Disable all unused RDP ports
- Keep all third-party applications and operating systems updated
- Disable macros within Office
- Ensure your backing up your data on an external hard drive or cloud-based service in a timely fashion
