A recent Forbes article details how a company was successfully able to recover from a ransomware attack, without paying the ransom. The company in question is Spectra Logic, a company that provides data storage and data management solutions. To find out how they managed to recover without paying a ransom, learn what 3 steps they took to make the recovery possible.
Have Offsite Back-ups
One of the major things that helped Spectra Logic was having offsite back-ups to restore from. As a data back-up company, you would expect they would have a solid plan for backing up and storing data. “Data recovery efforts were about 99.5% effective with 70% data recovery to the prior day and 20% additional recovery to the week before. One substantial system had its data recovered from a month prior. No customer data was lost, and no data actually left the company from the attack.” By having their back-ups stored offsite and offline, it made it impossible for those files to also become infected with malware.
Have a Disaster Recovery Plan
Having a disaster recovery plan was key in Spectra Logic being able to get up in running quickly. They had a plan for what experts to call in, in case the unthinkable happened. With the help of experts, they were able to check and clear the ransomware infection in 3-4 days. Contrast this with a Coveware study which shows that the average ransomware incident lasts 16 days.
Have Cyber Insurance
Many people believe that cyber insurance is there to pay a ransom on your behalf. While some policies will provide for ransom payments, the majority do not. They will, however, help you recover some of the recovery costs from an incident. As in the case of Spectra Logic, the cyber insurance helped defray the costs of the data recovery. Even though data recovery is expensive, it was less expensive than the $3 million demanded by the hackers. There is also the peace of mind in knowing that because you didn’t pay the ransom, you didn’t unknowingly fund a terrorist organization.
If your business is hit with ransomware, it could be very costly to have to fork over a large ransom to get your data back. Businesses that have cyber insurance, a sound back up policy, and a recovery strategy will do well to overcome a ransomware attack. Is your business prepared? Contact Uzado today to help you prepare for the inevitable. 