The account of ransomware

In our previous blog, we already discussed two major costs in the event of a successful ransomware attack. Because of downtime – the time you are not operational – costs quickly skyrocket, averaging 23 times the ransom demanded. And double extortion, such as the threat to further sell or disclose data, is already adding to the bill. However, that is not the end of it. After these first two points, we will continue with points 3 through 5 in this blog.

3. Restoring your IT environment.

A successful attack shows that your security of your IT environment is not optimal and has been damaged by the attack. So: cost number 3 is for repairing and improving the IT environment. This almost always requires outside expertise to find and fill in the gaps. A cost that can add up considerably, but is essential to facing the next attack better prepared. An example from the United States: the city of Atlanta was hacked with ransomware. Good for a $50,000 ransom demand. That was paid for. Then it cost another $2.6 million in outside expertise, personnel, infrastructure improvements and data breach plugging.

4. Ransom

The ransom itself is also a cost, assuming it is paid. Although the above example shows that all additional costs are a multiple of the ransom. And, of course, you can choose not to pay this ransom. No one gives you a guarantee that the cybercriminals will actually make the hostage data available again or have not secretly withheld a copy. By the way, cybercriminals are not backward either: the amount of the ransom has more than doubled by 2020.

5. Reputational damage

Hard to put into numbers, but research shows that 60 percent of companies surveyed would rather not do business with a company or organization affected by ransomware. Another survey shows that two-thirds of companies immediately switch to competitors when their primary supplier is unreachable. There is even a “hall of shame” on the Internet that lists companies with data breaches and security issues. You don’t want to stand on that.

What does it cost to secure properly?

Faced with all these mounting costs, the question is: what does it cost to properly secure your data and IT environment? Especially when it comes to an affordable, hardware-based solution gets like airgap backup with Silent Bricks.