According to a survey from Osterman Research, almost one out of every two respondents indicated their organization had suffered at least one ransomware attack in the past 12 months. In addition, just four percent of respondents from U.S. organizations said they were very confident in the ability of their current security to prevent a future attack.
EDSI has seen the detrimental results of ransomware attacks in terms of both time and money. As a provider of cloud backup solutions, we work proactively with clients to protect their IT systems. However, sometimes we are approached for help after an attack has occurred.
In one such case, a $5 million printing company approached us after cybercriminals attacked its IT infrastructure, resulting in business interruptions for about one week.
Background
This printing company was an ideal cyberattack victim. First, the company had multiple servers mapped directly to the internet. Next, in addition to having no real firewall, it hosted its own servers and did not have a dual authentication password policy in place. Finally, there was a loosely managed backup system and the company employed a part-time IT person with other responsibilities and no real backup system. In other words, for the sake of convenience and quick access to its servers, the company left itself completely vulnerable to an attack.
The Crime
Unsurprisingly, cyberattackers found the printing company’s servers wide open—then exposed that vulnerability and easily gained login access. They remotely logged in and installed ransomware software, which encrypted all business applications, including accounting software that enabled the printers to create orders.
Repercussions
The company couldn’t print or receive checks, buy supplies and raw materials, or even bill customers. Without a strong backup system in place, it was not able to recover quickly because the last backup was one month old. The result was a week’s worth of downtime at a great cost to the business.
Solution
EDSI was contacted when the company was unable to move forward with its business operations. Our first step was to isolate all of its servers from the internet and to locate a previous good backup from its files, albeit one that was a month old. Next, we rebuilt its servers from the ground up, reinstalled all of the company’s applications and created a private cloud service infrastructure. We also educated the owners and employees on network security and the importance of good backup.
EDSI now hosts the company’s servers. We also installed security software and a regular backup rotation, which includes an on-site and off-site backup component.
The Takeaway
Business owners should not put their company at risk just to save money up-front—the threat of a security breach is way too high. In addition to a company losing significant money to get operations up and running, it could be compromising its customers’ confidential information. Network security must be viewed as an essential business investment—especially in light of the rising threat of cybercrime. Cloud backup solutions and internal security measures offer an added layer of protection.
Cloud Solutions
As more enterprises have migrated to cloud solutions, the cloud has become the status quo. With greater adoption, the cost for cloud solutions has become less expensive than on-premises solutions.
Work with your professional cloud solution experts to find the solution or service that meets your particular needs. While most cloud providers focus on selling one or two cloud solutions, there are advantages to partnering with a single cloud vendor that understands all of your data protection needs.
As a Veeam service provider, EDSI hosts complete, off-site backup and recovery services with Veeam Cloud Connect, Veeam’s technology that makes it easy to connect to repositories in the cloud and efficiently maintain off-site copies of backups.
To learn more about ransomeware protection solutions from EDSI, contact us today at 866.302.3374.