Did you know that a ransomware attack takes place every 11 seconds? According to cybersecurity statistics, the average downtime for a business that comes under a ransomware attack is 21 days while the average cost of ransomware recovery for a business stood at $1.85 million. The total ransomware costs have exceeded the $20 billion mark already while some even estimate the annual cost of ransomware attacks to be $6 trillion.
This clearly shows that the number of ransomware attacks is on the rise and the financial damage it is causing to businesses is also growing. Not only that, but ransomware attacks are also increasing in complexity and sophistication making them harder and harder to detect with the passage of time.
So, how can a business protect itself from ransomware attacks in such a situation? By creating a ransomware response plan. Don’t know how to create a ransomware response plan? You are at the right place because that is exactly what we will discuss in this article.
In this article, AntiDdos will teach you five steps you can take to create a ransomware response plan for your business.
5 Steps To Create a Successful Ransomware Response Plan For Your Business
Here are five steps you can take to create a foolproof ransomware response plan for your business.
1. Contain The Attack
Let’s assume that your business becomes a victim of a ransomware attack. What will be your first step? Contain the attack from spreading, right. How? That is where your ransomware response plans come into play. Write down all the steps you will take to contain the ransomware attack.
With clearly documented steps in front of the cybersecurity team, it is much easier for them to act quickly. The faster they can act, the lower the damage will be. It could be anything from shutting down services to isolating the hardware or contacting the right authorities. All these steps can help you prevent ransomware attacks from spreading far and wide, which allows you to limit the damage it can cause.
Irrespective of what your course of action might be, make sure you document it so that everyone knows what action to take during a ransomware attack instead of panicking during a crisis situation. You might be wondering why I am advising you to report cybercrime such as ransomware to concerned authorities such as law enforcement agencies and government organizations.
The reason is that such attacks can sometimes be state-sponsored and are launched by armies of cyber attackers. They operate in an organized manner. With threat intelligence from different sources, these agencies are well equipped to identify the motivation behind the cyberattack.
2. Prepare for Worst Case Scenario
Turn back the clock a few years back and you will notice that ransomware attacks used to be quite straightforward. Attackers use encryption to make your data inaccessible and ask for a ransom to give you access to your data. Those days are over. Fast forward to today, ransomware attacks are more sophisticated and harder to detect than they have ever been.
Businesses come to know about the attack once the damage has been done so they have no choice but to pay the ransom. Today’s ransomware attacks target your sensitive business data, communication and messages and even financial records of your customers/ They can even go after your partner, vendors, and suppliers’ data as well. This could include everything from credit card information, business secrets, or even conversation between employees.
Ransomware attackers will threaten you by saying that they will make all the information public or share it with a competitor if you don’t pay the ransom. They use all these tactics to get in your head, blackmail your business and force you into paying a ransom.
The best way to combat this is to prepare for the worst-case scenario. Assume that your sensitive data is either stolen or leaked. How will you react in such a situation? By preparing yourself for the worst-case scenario, you can handle such situations in a much better way.
3. Anticipate Cloud-Based Attacks
With more and more businesses adopting cloud infrastructure instead of DDoS protected dedicated servers, the focus of attackers has also shifted to the cloud. They are now targeting cloud-based application programming interfaces or cloud storage to gain access to your data. In fact, they have now developed tools and techniques that are tailor-made to exploit cloud vulnerabilities.
If you are one of the early adopters of the cloud and have migrated your workloads to the cloud, you must be ready to deal with such attacks. The best way to do that is to enforce strict password policies and adopt a zero-trust approach in order to minimize the risk of cloud-based data breaches.
4. Adopt Best Data Backup Practices
The best line of defense against ransomware attacks is backups. Even though most businesses take backups of their data but they do it the wrong way. They use traditional methods such as tape drives to store backups or do not store the backup in a separate location. That is why they end up paying the ransom even after having the backup of their data because they can not recover their data when they come under a ransomware attack.
The better way to take backups would be to take screenshots of your storage so your data stays safe.
5. Pay a Ransom Or Not
Let’s say, you only have two choices. Pay the ransom to get your data back or lose your data forever. You have to answer the most important question, should I pay the ransom or not? Before answering this question, you should consider:
• Quality of backup
• Time to recover the backup
• Value of data lost
• Consequences from a data leak
The problem with paying the ransom is that it does not guarantee that you will actually get access to your data back. According to a Cybereason study, 80% of victims who paid the ransom experienced another attack soon after while 46% did get access to their data back but it was corrupted. Paying a ransom would only be a great option if it can speed up data recovery and protect your brand reputation.
How do you create a ransomware response plan for your business? Share it with us in the comments section below.
