Can your data outlive a kidnapping?
How would you feel if someone hijacked everything on your computer and held it for ransom?
Would you be unaffected? Everything is backed up. I’m good.
Or maybe you have nothing of merit on your computer, so it really makes no difference to you either way. Eh, I don’t need anything on my computer. Go ahead and take it.
But what if you do have something worth taking on your computer like work projects, financial information, or private messages? What would you say then? And what if your data isn’t properly backed up? What if the only way you could ever see your data again is if you paid money to the kidnapper of your data?
Lately, as a string of ruthless Ransomware attacks the business world, many CEOs and managers are required to contemplate the price of their data, and oftentimes, the content of their data and the reliability of their backups play a critical role in this process.
If you aren’t sure what Ransomware is, it’s a form of Malware that will encrypt your data. To receive the decryption key, you will need to pay a predetermined sum of money to the hacker or hacking group. Usually, this is not a large sum, making it more realistic for a larger percentage of businesses and individuals to pay up.
However, this is not always the case. The first few months of 2016 brought Ransomware to a few hospitals. The attackers demanded millions of dollars from the hospital in exchange for the decryption key. The victimized hospitals lost critical patient records and, in the process, were forced to resort to pen and paper to track incoming data.
What would happen if you suddenly lost all access to client records like these hospitals did? How badly would your daily operations be affected?
On the flip side of things, what if this malware affected you personally as opposed to professionally? Now, Ransomware can affect smartphones, locking the entire phone to external usage. At this point, not only can you not use it, but you can’t see anything on it either—contacts, messages, apps, incoming calls, nothing.
Feeling anxious yet?
Ransomware can affect any business and any person at any time. Because of this, it’s important to keep your data fully backed up; it’s important to know for sure that your data can outlive a kidnapping.
