Prevent ransomware affecting your business.

Ransomware and the lessons to learn BEFORE it happens to you.

Unfortunately over the past month several companies that we don't work with have been victims of ransomware attacks. So lets look at what ransomware is and how to prevent it becoming an issue for you and your company.

"Ransomware is a type of malware that restricts access to the infected computer system in some way, and demands that the user pay a ransom to the malware operators to remove the restriction" (from Wikipedia)

The impacts of this can be huge! We saw one company lose access to ALL of their data. They spent a day trying to remove the restriction but none of the staff could do any work so they lost a days trading. Being unable to work they took the painful decision to pay the ransom and regain access to their own business data. They then carried on with business as usual and it happened AGAIN within 6 weeks. At this point they called Swan Solutions and we went in and helped them to protect themselves from it happening again.

Losing the ability to access with your business critical data means downtime...

...which means loss of business...

...which means loss of revenue.

Swan Solutions recommendations to prevent ransomeware being an issue for you;

1. Robust anti-virus and anti-spam solution.

We use Symantec products at Swan Solutions and we recommend these to all of our clients. They are cost effective, work well for companies of all sizes and give you the best chance of keeping virus' out of your business. However no anti-virus services are 100% infallible.

2. Business Continuity through a reliable back up solution.

At Swan we also use a Datto back up solution. We have a unit on site to back up to locally and that unit is connected to a secure cloud storage area off site. At several times each day we then send a copy of the back up into the cloud storage area. The key benifit here being that should a ransomware virus affect us we can simply restore all of our data back to a time before the ransomware took hold e.g. eleven hours ago, three hours ago, 22 minutes ago or whenever it occured.

All of our data rolls back to the moment before the virus took effect and we carry on as normal taking steps to avoid and delete the virus before it can take hold again. We think this is alot more preferable to paying a ransom to data pirates.

3. Staff awareness

Most users can spot a malicious email but it only takes on user to click on that attachment and your entire system is compromised. Why not take the time to send messages around to all staff reminding them not to click on anything they dont recognise. Have a one morning session showing them the kind of things to look for and reminding them of the importance of best practice.

If you want to talk about how a ransomware might affect you and preventative methods in more detail get in touch;

Email Sales@swan-solutions.com or call 0845 643 6011.