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A ransomware crisis plan is now a business imperative

Most organisations today are aware of the ransomware threat. Unfortunately, the gap between awareness and broad, company-wide action to mitigate the impacts of ransomware is still far too significant.

Cyber criminals around the world have seized upon their digital opportunity and built a burgeoning $5 billion extortion racket.

“Ransomware attacks are now part of your daily news diet,” says Byron Horn-Botha, BU Lead, Arcserve Southern Africa.

What’s more, data security and backup and recovery vendors are regularly beating the ransomware drum. Everywhere you turn, you’re bombarded by the threat – and you may very well be experiencing some ransomware fatigue.

We urge you to bring your key corporate stakeholders to the table, come to a full understanding of the business threats ransomware poses and begin development of the ransomware crisis plan that will see you safely through.

It’s a frightening reality of the Dark Web. Those with criminal intentions can now acquire RaaS for free or a nominal fee and simply share a cut of the profits with their software provider. As a result, we expect the growing number of attacks to employ more creative approaches, as well.

Create your rock-solid ransomware crisis plan. Your ransomware crisis plan is mission-critical to the continued operations of your entire organisation – which is why it simply can’t be created in isolation.

It requires the input of not only IT professionals, but critical stakeholders within each department to ensure you accurately assess business risk and mitigate impact. Not sure where to start? Let us walk you through the essential components of your plan.

1. Establish your ransomware crisis team.

2. Document your governance plan.

3. Determine if you are ready to the take the risk of paying the ransom – and if so, how.

4. Purchase your cyber insurance policy.

5. Define the steps end users should take upon discovering an infection.

6. Thoroughly document your technical response.

7. Plot out your detailed communications response.

8. Protect and practice your plan.

Ransomware attacks are a frightening new reality for IT professionals and corporate executives alike. That’s because anyone can now get into the game, regardless of their technical chops. We’re talking professional con artists who’ve successfully operated traditional social engineering scams – now enabled to apply their skills to ransomware without ever having to set up infrastructure or program a backend system.

Reach out for expert security and for data recovery advice to Arcserve Southern Africa, Byron Horn-Botha, byron.horn-botha@arcserve.com to help you build out your Ransomware Crisis Plan.

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