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Ransomware attacks are on the rise, costing organisations billions of dollars in paid ransoms and cleanup costs, and crippling employee productivity and customer service during the down times. The FBI reports that ransomware attacks cost victims $209 million in the first three months of 2016, which works out at about $330,000 an incident. And almost 40 % of enterprises have been hit by ransomware in the last year.
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So, what is ransomware? It’s a strain of malware (malicious software) that cybercriminals upload onto organisations’ computers, servers or user devices in order to lock them down, before demanding payment of a ransom – usually in the form of Bitcoin or some other non-traceable currency – in exchange for decrypting and releasing their data. In a ransomware attack, the hacker is
literally holding your users’ workday hostage, cutting off access to vital productivity tools like email, calendars and contact lists, or back-end systems such as databases, file servers, email servers and other systems. What’s worse, 99 % of ransomware attacks start with an email message, often enabled via phishing. Unfortunately there isn’t much information about the threat landscape
across Africa but according to the US government, ransomware attacks in America have increased in frequency by 300 % year-on-year in 2016, with 4,000 incidents a day now being reported – and that is just in the US. Ransomware is also not exclusive to big businesses. In fact, many smaller organisations are being targeted because
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