The Cost of Ransomware

This episode is all about Ransomware. Ransomware, as the name suggests, is when an adversary hacks into your system and makes your critical data inaccessible until you can pay a ransom. This is cybersecurity attacks for profit. No matter how large or small your organization is, you are at risk for ransomware. Your personal data, such as pictures, music, and financial records, can be hacked, and you can be forced to buy hundreds or even thousands of dollars of cryptocurrency to get that data back. But more likely, attackers will target businesses. Large businesses will have to absorb a loss, sometimes in the millions, to pay, and small businesses may go out of business if they cannot pay. In theory, you should not pay the ransom, but in practice, it will cost months of time and ten times the money to recover your data. Many practices we have to prevent ransomware are ineffective in real-world scenarios. For example, many people think they are automatically backed up, and don’t realize that the backups are actually just as vulnerable. Many of us are careless and use the same device for surfing the web and checking email as we do for accessing critical data.