55% of SMBs Will Meet Hacker’s Demands
According to a recent study, 55% of SMBs confirmed they would pay any ransom demands the hackers set forth, if they were to become a victim of ransomware.
The exact reasoning behind their willingness to pay is unclear. However, there are several factors to consider including, the hope of retrieving access to their files/networks quicker, to prevent a data breach, exhaustion of all other resources, and to minimize the impact of lost productivity. All of these are valid reasons for wanting operations to return to normal as quickly as possible. Although, it is important to keep in mind, paying the ransom demand does not mean all, or any, of those things, will happen. There is a chance the decryption key provided by the hackers will not work. It is also entirely possible that they’ve accessed files, and/or extracted data creating a breach.
Although it may seem easier to pay a ransom with the hopes of restoring the network sooner than later, it isn’t always that simple.
PC Matic never encourages anyone to pay the ransom demands. Alternatively, they want users to focus on prevention. Instead of setting aside funds to pay off a hacker when/if a cyber attack occurs, SMBs need to be taking a proactive approach to avoid falling victim, to begin with. Here are the key things SMBs must use to effectively prevent being a victim:
- Deploy a whitelist security solution
- Train employees on modern cyber threats and red flags associated with each
- Audit RDP ports and disable all that are not being used
- Ensure all programs and operating systems are updated
