How Much Is Your Data Worth?

The second global attack in as many months causing havoc for businesses.

Today, businesses across Europe and the US are waking up to ‘Petya’, the second major global ransomware attack in as many months, freezing user’s computers and demanding untraceable ransoms to be paid in the digital Bitcoin currency.

The US Department of Homeland Security is advising victims not to pay the ransom, saying there was no guarantee that access to files would be restored.

Russian anti-virus firm Kaspersky Lab has confirmed about 2,000 attacks so far with Interpol “closely monitoring” the situation and liaising with its member countries.

Experts suggest the malware is taking advantage of the same weaknesses used by the ‘WannaCry’ last month, but it is believed this malware is a “new ransomware that has not been seen before” despite its resemblance.

Even the Chernobyl nuclear power plant has had to monitor radiation levels manually after its Windows-based sensors were shut down and a South Korean firm just paid $1m to get their data back.

What should you do if you’re affected?

The ransomware infects computers and then waits for about an hour before rebooting the machine. Advice to date is to switch off the computer immediately whilst rebooting as this is actually the encryption process. If the system reboots with the ransom note, don’t pay it, disconnect from the internet, reformat the hard drive and reinstall your files from a backup.

Are you doing enough to protect your data?

During a recent conference that we attended on Cyber Security, we learnt that a whopping 74% of businesses suffered a security breach of some kind last year. So our question here at Netbiz Group is simple, how much is your data worth, and what would the impact be should you lose it?

We’ve been working hard over the years to provide answers to such questions and have invested in a number of application layer and server side solutions to help to protect and mitigate such attacks. To find out what you should be doing to protect your online business, contact us today, a member of our team will be happy to advise you and can answer any questions that you may have!