Risky Business: Ep 01 RansomWare

Dan Carroll: What are the biggest threats to small businesses that aren’t Tron?

Mick Grove: What I thought was an interesting statistic to kick this off. I read an article today from the Denver Post where they talked about 60% of small businesses that suffer a cybersecurity breach often go out of business within six months. That is because they’re not prepared, so the biggest threats to them are that they have ransomware. This is a common tactic that criminals use and that’s just simply, “I’m not going to steal your company data, I will just encrypt your data.” So the things you use to run your business, you can’t access anymore.

Dan Carroll: This is like mafia-style tactics. (Goes on a mafioso rant about extortion and requiring protection money)

Mick Grove: That’s actually a really good analogy it’s effectively extortion. They lock up all your data so you can’t get to it and they say, “you need to pay us within a certain amount of time. Then we will give you the decryption key.” People pay it, businesses in Seattle and throughout the country have reported paying this. If you are small you might pay $500, but larger businesses will target for more money, and they know you’ll pay for it. If you don’t have a back up that could put you out of business.

Dan Carroll: So how do people avoid that?

Mick Grove: So the best way to avoid it is to have regular backups. Really if you have Quickbooks, if you have a payroll system or important excel spreadsheets, you should be using an online backup service. Microsoft has one called OneDrive, there’s Dropbox, Box, Crashplan. There is a monthly cost associated with a lot of these.

Dan Carroll: But that monthly fee isn’t $500, Dropbox is like $20.

Mick Grove: No. Its a monthly cost and the benefit is, let’s say you get ransomware. You don’t pay them, you just restore your backup and continue operating. You don’t lose days of business.

This post is part of our “Risky Business” series on online security tips for businesses.