Should I Pay The Ransom?

If your businesses are hit by ransomware, the first question people ask is " Should I pay the ransom?" This is a difficult question based on how prepared you are for the attack.

If you have proper backups, do NOT pay the ransom for several reasons:

  1. If you pay the ransom, you have a better than 50% chance of being targeted again.
  2. By paying the ransom, you are fueling the new "industry" of hackers.
  3. The hackers may NOT provide the decryption key and you are out of the cash. There is no recourse if they do not provide the decryption key.

Are backups enough?

Unless your backup is replicated to several different locations on and off of your network, you could still be in trouble. Here are some things most Ransomware will do:

  1. Some Ransomware will locate your backups and purge them from your storage device. This is why it is critical to have another copy of your data off-site.
  2. Some Ransomware will delete the Windows Shadow Copy.

Compliance Requirements

If you are in an industry where compliance is required, a ransomware attack will require you to report yourself to local, state and federal authorizes. Depending on the number of files affected, you could be looking at $10,000's in fines, loss of reputation, lawsuits from the affected clients and possible bankruptcy of your business. In some cases, your insurance will not pay. It is better and less expensive to be proactive to these threats than reactive after the damage is done. Ransomware can be worse than a physical break-in to your establishment and much more costly.

If you require assistance or information, please feel free to contact us.

To learn more about The 7 Most Critical IT Security Protections Every Business Must Have In Place Now To Protect Themselves From Cybercrime, Data Breaches And Hacker Attacks, click here for the free guide.

To read more about how a city in Florida paid the ransom and still did not recover all of their data, follow this link.