Increasingly ransomware attacks are targeting businesses to disrupt or extort funds. Global businesses, government, educational establishments and hospitals are being targeted whether large or small across many countries. The ransomware attacks are becoming very sophisticated in how they infiltrate a business network and how they spread throughout a network. Sometimes the ransomware lies dormant for months waiting to strike at the perfect time to cause as much disruption to a business or organisation. When these attacks do strike they are designed to block access to a computer system and encrypt the data and storage until a ransom is paid.
The recent attack in the US targeted a Florida based IT company called Kaseya and they provide management software to MSPs and have over 10,000 customers in a number of global countries. A specific version of their software was targeted, and it has affected over 1,500 businesses. The ransomware attackers demanded a ransom of $70m in Bitcoin be paid before they release the encryption keys.
The fact is, if a large business is the victim of a ransomware attack and cannot retrieve it's files, the likelihood is that the business will go bust within 90 days.
