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COMMENT
EDITOR: David Tyler
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TURNING THE RANSOMWARE TIDE
BY DAVID TYLER
EDITOR
Welcome to the November/December issue of Storage magazine, which
features not one, not two, but three surveys into ransomware/cyberattacks,
and how prepared - or otherwise - organisations are for what increasingly
feels like a 'not if, but when' scenario for most of us these days.
In a piece from Zerto about ransomware preparedness, we learn that only one in
seven businesses are able to fully recover their data following an attack - a statistic
that should really have all of us rushing off to check just how ready our business
systems are!
The most recent high profile news story on the subject featured the British Library,
who appear in the last few weeks to have lost vast amounts of HR data including
passport information - information that could be of value to ID fraudsters, for example.
"Given the high frequency of ransomware attacks and the impacts of successful ones
such as data and infrastructure loss, many organisations are left with damages that
have an effect well beyond IT," comments Christophe Bertrand, practice director at
ESG.
Elsewhere a recent Veeam survey suggests that ransomware is now seen as a greater
concern than either the current state of the economy or the effects of Brexit by most UK
businesses. The consequences of any kind of ransomware attack can be far wider
than many might imagine: according to Veeam, 20% of businesses considered
dissolving within a year of an attack, 32% reported that their staff worked longer
hours, and 42% of respondents said they experienced greater than normal customer
losses.
Given the significant financial damage caused by ransomware, it's clear why some
businesses simply don't make it through. As well as the cost of the ransom itself - if
indeed it is paid - companies lost an average of 35% of their annual turnover in the
three months following an attack, and 39% lost over 40%. 28% experienced a
revenue-hitting drop in productivity.
So, what are organisations doing to prepare for and combat these threats? Our third
piece on the subject, courtesy of Hornetsecurity, gives some indications: their annual
survey suggests that well over 90% of respondents rank ransomware protection as
'very' to 'extremely' important in terms of IT priorities for their organisation, and over
85% confirmed they have a disaster recovery plan in place for a ransomware attack.
There is some reassurance as well in their finding that the number of ransomware
victims actually appears to have gone down slightly in 2023. It can only be hoped
that this is the beginning of a turning of the tide, as organisations become more
vigilant in their data protection.
04 STORAGE
MAGAZINE
Nov/Dec 2023
@STMagAndAwards
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