Itechra: Blog

Under a Ransomware Attack? Here’s Why You Should Never Pay their Fees

Ransomware is one of the fastest growing cyber-crimes in the world. Last year, a shocking 37% of businesses were victim to an attack.

In case you didn’t know, a ransomware attack is where cyber criminals infiltrate your network (or device) and steal your data by encrypting it. The data is still there, but you can’t access it.

Then they demand you pay a large ransom fee for the encryption key.

If you don’t pay the demand (which can potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars), they delete your data.

But it’s not just the cost of the large ransom fee that everyone worries about.

There’s the stress, reputational damage and downtime that goes with it. In 2021, the average downtime suffered after a ransomware attack was 22 days. Imagine not getting any progress in your business for over three weeks; that’s just what most businesses have to deal with when being targeted from a ransomware attack.

Our official advice to never pay for any ransomware demands.

However, a new survey has shown that a massive 97% of business leaders who’ve experienced a ransomware attack in the past would pay up quickly if they were attacked again.

And one third of them would pay it instantly.

What does that tell you about what a nightmare the whole thing is for any business?

The other problem is, when you pay a ransomware demand, it’s not guaranteed that you’ll get your data back.

But on average, only 65% of data is restored once a fee is paid. They will likely only give you back part of your data once you already paid their huge fee.

Another downside to paying ransomware fees is that you will likely face further data threats from hackers.

Why does this happen?

By paying their initial ransomware fee to the cybercriminal, you are letting cyber criminals know that your business pays ransom fees. So, it’s likely that you’ll face subsequent attacks in the future.

So, what’s the best way to deal with ransomware?

First, you should put in place the right security measures to try to prevent an attack:

  • Educate your employees on cyber security and best practice

  • Implement multi-factor authorization across all your applications

  • Use a password manager

  • Make sure all updates are installed quickly

  • And you should always have a working backup in place – ideally one where older data is retained and cannot be changed

It’s also a great idea to have a response and recovery plan that details what you will do in the event of a ransomware attack.

Not only will it mean your business can respond faster, but it should reduce the amount of downtime suffered as you’ve already considered exactly what needs to happen.

This is what we do. We help businesses increase their cyber security to reduce their chances of being affected. Let’s talk.

Published with permission from Your Tech Updates.

Itechra Team

Itechra Team

From 2000, we set out to solve what was then a major problem for small businesses: having difficulty keeping up with their IT needs. We noticed that large corporations often had multiple employees specializing in different aspects of the industry and realized this approach could work well also among smaller organizations who might not be able to sustain such teams, but still require help managing an oversized workload. We provide a single resource for all your IT issues.