Ransomware is Inevitable. Here’s How to Protect Yourself

Published On May 17, 2017

Ransomware is the biggest single threat facing your organization. Learn how hybrid cloud DR can help protect you.

Let’s be clear about one thing: Ransomware is the biggest single threat facing your organization. Not one of the biggest. But the absolute, undisputed, number one danger to your company’s livelihood.

Sound a bit hyperbolic? Consider[1]:

• 91% of companies have been victimized by ransomware
• 40% have experienced six or more attacks a year
• 31% of IT service providers have experienced multiple incidents in a single day
• And 93% of those attacked have had preventative anti-virus and anti-malware software in place

The takeaway? Your company faces a near statistically certainty it will be a victim of a ransomware. And when it happens, you’ll be left with one of two choices: Pay up and save your data but risk becoming an easy mark for hackers, or refuse to give into demands and suffer potentially significant (and costly) downtime and/or the loss of business-critical information.

Fortunately, however, Hybrid Cloud Disaster Recovery (DR) allows you to opt out of making such a difficult decision altogether. By acknowledging the reality of ransomware, and by accepting that you are likely to suffer an attack at some point, you can greatly minimize any potential damage to your business and the loss critical data.

Here’s how:

Data backups

With a Hybrid Cloud DR solution, your company’s essential data is backed up locally and then an additional backup is replicated off-site, providing additional data security. The in-house data is protected by redundant sets of information with the local device being the first line of defense. In most cases, three distinct copies of each file exist – on the workstation or server, on the local device and in the public cloud.

In addition, encrypted files are stored off-site are available in case an unforeseen event—or in the case of ransomware, a foreseen event—occurs. Data is always accessible no matter what the circumstances, ensuring business continuity.

Easy recovery during downtime

When companies experience downtime, they stand to lose a great deal of money as IT strives to bring operations back online. In these instances, cloud virtual machines (VM) can be the difference between downtime and uptime. Cloud VMs are copies of workstations or servers running on a server in the cloud. Every aspect of the duplicated machine can be run from this virtual machine that lives in the cloud, and is therefore not vulnerable to localized phenomena, like ransomware. Companies can failover to the cloud to avoid downtime, keeping data and operations running smoothly and consistently, ensuring business continuity.

A different way of looking at ransomware

Right now, companies are arming themselves to prevent ransomware, but the reality is, even with the best anti-virus and anti-malware defenses in place, chances remain high they will be victimized. Ransomware is simply too easy to execute—and too lucrative for hackers—to ever be fully prevented. As such, the conversation should shift from prevention of an attack to prevention of any significant downtime or data loss.

And Hybrid cloud DR can do exactly that. With the Hybrid Cloud DR, ransomware detection is continuously enabled. In the event of a positive rasnsomware detection, the Cloud VMs can simply roll back in time and continue to operate from a clean set of data there by provide a total isolation from these threats. This allows companies to fight the ransomware battle at a different level.

Download this infographic for more stats and tips for protection against ransomware.

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[1] Datto’s State of Channel Ransomware Report 2016