Safeguarding Your Business as Ransomware Continues to Challenge Companies Globally
By WatServ
October 26, 2022
Last year we published an article about ransomware and how companies are being subjected to this criminal activity more often. Ransomware is a type of malicious software, or malware, designed to deny access to a computer system or data until a ransom is paid.Â
Sometimes it costs a few thousand dollars, but if you read the news, you know demands can be far greater. On average, the cost of a ransomware attack is now $4.62 million. On top of cost, companies often need to go public about an attack to explain a lack of service, or because they need to report to a regulator, but this can also lead to such damage to your reputation that future customers stay away.
What has changed since then?
If anything, the potential threat has only grown. Attacks are more common than ever and are extracting bigger payments than ever.Â
Recreational vehicle maker BRP spent a week in August this year almost entirely paralyzed. The company was unable to trade with customers or suppliers as a cyber-attack took down all their servers. This is a company with manufacturing facilities in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Finland, Austria and Australia, and a total workforce of more than 20,000 people.
BRP sells specialized vehicles so their customers may choose to accept a delay or some disruption, but how many customers would just click on a rival brand if your website and order processing system were down because of a ransomware attack?
Ransomware is becoming more common, more sophisticated and more targeted. Even global companies like Cisco are falling victim to attacks. The company was recently targeted by a group that claimed to have 2.8GB of internal company data.
National public health agencies are seeing their ability to respond to the public destroyed by ransomware. The British NHS was completely unable to function for several days after the famous WannaCry ransomware attack in 2017 – even after that damaging experience they are still suffering more attacks.
Some companies are even now hiring professional ransomware negotiators and disguising them as regular employees.
These news stories are now endless.
The threat is not receding. It is not going away. The reality is that every business regardless of size, is a potential target for a ransomware attack.
One option worth exploring is how a cloud solutions provider can help reduce the chance of cyber threats and put a response plan in place so if an attack does happen, you can quickly react, triage and minimize damage.
How can this work?
At WatServ we help protect our clients from cybersecurity threats, like ransomware, by leveraging CloudSecure, a fully managed Cloud Computing Security Operations Center as-a-Service (SOCaaS). Included is a complete Managed Detection and Response (MDR) solution to protect your most critical infrastructure, whether on premise, cloud, multi-cloud, or hybrid.
Our Managed Detection and Response solution does more than just detect and respond to threats. It minimizes the damage of successful attacks in all environments and proactively updates and patches your critical IT infrastructure. The WatServ Security Team works 24/7 with our partner Alert Logic and their team of 200+ Security Experts to analyze all aspects of your infrastructure, regardless of where it resides.
It’s no secret that Ransomware is designed to be disruptive, frustrating to deal with and draining on internal resources. WatServ is here to help by safeguarding your cloud environments and give you peace of mind, so you can focus on business instead. Learn more about our CloudSecure/SOCaaS MDR solution or contact our team directly to get started.
About
WatServ is an IT solutions provider that helps organizations digitally transform through cloud technologies and managed services.
Serving clients as a trusted advisor since 2006, WatServ provides experience-tested, strategic solutions across all stages of the digital transformation journey. Clients choose WatServ to migrate infrastructure and applications to the cloud, secure critical data, implement disaster recovery, deploy virtual desktop, enable data-readiness for productivity solutions and manage IT environments.
Our clients span a broad range of industries, and we’re a global supplier of IT services for many Brookfield Portfolio Companies. To help our mid-size clients, we provide scalable offerings that simplify cloud adoption and drive business optimization. For enterprise clients, we co-create cloud solutions that enable stability and efficiency for complex IT tools and processes.
With more than 15 years of experience, WatServ has a track record of delivering quantifiable business results and a superior client experience. Ranked as one of Canada’s Top 100 Solution Providers for the last three years in a row, WatServ is always on.
