Ransomware Encryption and Corruption
Data recovery of digital information from a Ransomware attack
Ransomware Encryption and Corruption
Am I at Risk for Ransomware? Ransomware is a legitimate risk for anyone with a computer and data that they want to keep attainable and secure. This includes organizations, businesses, governments, and even individuals. Basically, everyone is vulnerable to a ransomware attack.
Recent statistics show that there is a ransomware attack every 40 seconds, costing businesses upwards of 20 billion dollars per year to try to recover their data. Not only is the cost high to pay for these data recoveries, but there is also the lost production time to consider as well. With varying timeframes of a few days to several months, the average company being hit by ransomware is down somewhere between two and four weeks.
Another distressing statistic is that almost half (45%) of US companies suffered a data breach in the past year. One study stated that 60% of all companies that suffer a data breach from Ransomware are forced into bankruptcy within six months.
What exactly is a Ransomware Attack?
Ransomware is malware that encrypts the vital files on your local and network storage making them inaccessible and unable to be read. This is done by this simply accessing your files, encrypting them with an attacker-controlled key, and replacing the original ones with an encrypted version. Since the malware is encrypted, the key cannot be forced and the only way to recover the information is through data recovery or from a backup.
Meanwhile, these ransomware hackers are demanding huge sums of money to "decrypt" your files. Even when a company does pay the ransom on these encrypted files, they are rarely able to fully recover their data, as the keys given by these hackers many times will malfunction.