Cloud computing has the power to transform your business and drive faster innovation. But with great power comes great responsibility – like protecting sensitive data and user privacy from the malicious onset of ransomware attacks.
Cloud security and ransomware attacks are mounting concerns. In fact, in a recent survey, 300 global CEOs called a lack of cybersecurity “…the single greatest threat to the global economy over the ensuing decade”. 1
Protecting data and safeguarding your business from ransomware attacks is both a legal and moral requirement. Failure to do so can incur staggering costs, loss of reputation and costly business interruptions – it can significantly damage your employee morale and business. A cloud-smart plan that includes powerful data backup and disaster recovery tools can save your organisation from a world of hurt.
Ransomware attack: A cloud security emergency
With cyberattack incidents accelerating, it’s not a matter of if your business will face a ransomware attack, but when. Focusing on prevention to thwart ransomware attacks isn’t enough, and that’s a new reality that is having serious consequences.
The annual cost of cybercrime is expected to jump from $8.4 trillion in 2022 to more than $23 trillion in 2027. 2
Compounding the challenge is the fact that criminals are getting smarter – and sneakier. Statistics show that it takes security teams an average of 277 days to identify and contain ransomware attacks. Prevention methods alone simply cannot keep up with the advanced techniques that savvy hackers use to infiltrate your infrastructure, lock up your data and hold your business hostage.
Hackers are proving to be heartless, targeting essential services, charity organisations, educational institutions and healthcare. By June 2020, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation had seen a 75 per cent spike in cybercrimes, and one year into the pandemic the UK reported that more than £34.5 million had been lost to coronavirus scams targeting the National Health Service, vaccine producers and supply chains. Recent threats against health care infrastructure, food production and distribution, and retail sectors highlight our data-dependent vulnerability to ransomware attacks and the urgent need for mitigation. 3
The first step in effective risk management: Accepting the inevitability of attacks
The threat of ransomware attacks can feel overwhelming, inevitable and hopeless. Today’s cyberattacks are fast-evolving, sophisticated, and cost far more than the ransom itself in loss of business, reputational damage, exposure to liabilities and the costs of public relations, legal fees and escalating IT expenditures.
No sector is safe from ransomware attacks, and no digital infrastructure, however robust, can save your organisation from being attacked. But the inevitability of a cyberattack doesn’t have to mean that your business is defenceless. A shift in perspective from prevention to preparation – and recovery helps drive a cloud-smart business continuity strategy to safeguard your customer data.
Resilience: The key to comprehensive cloud security
Once an attack occurs, your organisation faces a series of critical decisions in a frighteningly short time. Do you pay the ransom? Can you block the hacker from infiltrating more data or destroying your backup? Can you restore business operations, and how long will that take? How can you protect your business and its customers or users from further catastrophe?
The more your business depends on complex digital infrastructure, the more vulnerable you are to disaster. So, it makes sense to implement a cloud-smart plan to thwart the hackers. You may not be able to lock them out completely, but you can turn their mission into mission impossible by mitigating the damage and recovering quickly and efficiently.
Business continuity planning: Survival of the fittest
The average cost of downtime for an organisation is US $88,000 per hour. That constitutes a staggering loss when you consider that the average downtime caused by a ransomware attack is 16.2 days.
The critical role of business continuity planning in mitigating the impact of ransomware attacks is a priority in a cloud-smart plan. Robust data backup and disaster recovery tools can be customised to fit the needs of your organisation and provide lifesaving protection for your data.
At ThinkOn, we design data protection and recovery solutions that repel ransomware attacks, protect data in the event an attack happens, and help you get up and running again – fast and efficiently. A comprehensive disaster recovery plan is critical to saving your organisation from insolvency, reputational damage and the potential legal consequences of noncompliance.
Backup as a service (BaaS) and disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS)
Backup as a service (BaaS) is a cost-effective solution to cloud security. But, on its own, it’s not enough. You need to include disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) in your cloud-smart plan. Here’s why ThinkOn’s BaaS and DRaaS are better together:
- Industry-leading DRaaS with Zerto and Veeam at near-instantaneous RPO/RTO offer the gold standard of disaster recovery.
- BaaS data protection with Veeam and RansomGuard provides comprehensive protection.
- With ThinkOn’s global data centre locations, you choose where to replicate your data.
- We’re data backup software agnostic. Use Veeam? CommVault? With our solutions, you don’t have to change or pick just one.
- No-nonsense billing with no fine print means no escalating cloud allocation use charges and no hidden fees.
When it comes to a ransomware event, resilience is entirely dependent on how your data backup infrastructure and disaster recovery solutions are implemented, whether you can identify the way the threat behaves, and the steps you take to address it.
At ThinkOn, we are data protection experts, and we know how to store and manage data so hackers won’t compromise your cloud security. Our Thinkers take a cloud-smart approach, and we’re here to help you ask the right questions to prepare your cybersecurity plan – and in the event of a cyberattack, we have a team or real human experts available to support you – 24/7.
The true value of a cloud-smart plan: It’s not just about the money
A cloud-smart plan should include tools such as immutable backup and data clean room cloud services. It will also consider your Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO).
Do you know your organisation’s tolerance for downtime? Have you weighed the cost of downtime versus the initial cost of prevention and recovery systems? Have you run the necessary tabletop exercises to test your recovery theories? Do you have the right cloud services and support structures in place to assist you in the event of a cyberattack?
You’ll want to know every aspect of your recovery and include it in your plan. For instance, do you have cyber insurance in place to cover your ransomware losses? Insurance companies today often require evidence that you’ve done due diligence to prevent – and recover from – an attack. Do you know what those requirements are?
Also consider the human costs. Do you know the ramifications of failing to protect sensitive data in the event of an attack? Will you need to cover the cost of stress leave for staff, or the potential loss of skills if the staff on leave are members of your IT team? Will staff or customers hold you legally responsible for losses and/or pain and suffering due to exposure of sensitive data? Planning for these contingencies will go a long way towards protecting both your business and the people who rely on you.
Continuous adaptation: Tools to navigate the changing digital landscape
The digital world is constantly evolving, so keep your systems up-to-date. Practice good patch management and keep operating systems current so the bad guys find it difficult to infiltrate. Automated updates, AI-powered data and system analysis and reporting can help you stay ahead of cyber criminals and block their ransomware attacks. ThinkOn cloud security, data storage and archiving, and business continuity tools help you take advantage of advanced data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning to protect data from security breaches and ransomware attacks – and fast-track your digital transformation journey.
Collaboration and training: The secret weapons of a cloud security plan
Cybercriminals count on you being unprepared for their underhanded tactics. That’s why a cloud-smart plan includes collaboration tools and techniques, information sharing, training and an investment in technology.
The most common entry points of ransomware include phishing, poor user practices and weak passwords. You can protect your business from these threats by involving every person at every level of your organisation in a comprehensive cloud security plan that includes training employees to recognise and isolate risks and running practice drills so everyone knows what to do.
Perpetrators of ransomware attacks are on the hunt for multiple ways to infiltrate your organisation. A cloud-smart cybersecurity plan includes budgeting for and investing in the most up-to-date technology and training that you can afford. Get help from data and cloud security experts to help you navigate the complex world of cloud security. Your data will thank you for it – and so will your business.
The best way to face the threat of ransomware is head on, so get the facts and make a plan.
Visit ThinkOn solutions to learn about our business continuity outcomes.
1 “Colonial Pipeline hack explained: Everything you need to know.” TechTarget. https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/feature/Colonial-Pipeline-hack-explained-Everything-you-need-to-know#:~:text=What%20was%20the%20root%20cause,Homeland%20Security%20on%20June%208
2 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Evolution-of-Ransomware-70_fig7_341719300
3 “Cybercrime Up 75% During COVID-19.” Congressional Hearing Details. Cointelegraph. https://cointelegraph.com/news/cybercrime-up-75-during-covid-19-congressional-hearing-details
4 Sean Michael Kerner. 2024. “35 cybersecurity statistics to lose sleep over in 2024.” TechTarget. https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/34-Cybersecurity-Statistics-to-Lose-Sleep-Over-in-2020
5 2024. “Biggest Cyber Attacks, Data Breaches Ransomware Attacks: February 2024.” Cyber Management Alliance. https://www.cm-alliance.com/cybersecurity-blog/biggest-cyber-attacks-data-breaches-ransomware-attacks-february-2024#cyberattacks
6 Sean Michael Kerner, Saheed Oladimeji. 2023. TechTarget. “SolarWinds hack explained: Everything you need to know.” https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/feature/SolarWinds-hack-explained-Everything-you-need-to-know
7 Sean Michael Kerner. 2022. “Colonial Pipeline hack explained: Everything you need to know.” TechTarget. https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/feature/Colonial-Pipeline-hack-explained-Everything-you-need-to-know
8 2024. “Fortifying digital defences: Cybersecurity in the federal government.” Cybersecurity Guide. https://cybersecurityguide.org/industries/government/
9 Mark Gill. 2024. “14 Shocking data loss and disaster recovery statistics.” Comparitech. https://www.comparitech.com/data-recovery-software/disaster-recovery-data-loss-statistics/