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What Is Data Protection? Why It’s Important and Why Cybersecurity Can’t Be Separate
Ransomware is one of the most pervasive and dangerous forms of malware or computer virus. Not only is it dangerous for individual desktops and mobile devices, but it can be positively catastrophic for businesses of all sizes in Long Island, NYC.
A ransomware attack occurs when a virus installs itself on a device, like a desktop or phone. It finds and encrypts sensitive data or locks down the device completely unless a ransom is paid, usually in cryptocurrency like Bitcoin.
Unfortunately, many business owners believe that they are safe from ransomware, or believe other harmful myths about this digital threat. Today, we’ll bust four myths about ransomware so you’re better equipped to protect yourself and your business in the future.
Many small to mid-sized business owners erroneously believe that their enterprises are safe from ransomware attacks. They think ransomware cybercriminals only target big businesses with tons of customers and lots of extra money in the bank. This is not true in the slightest.
In truth, most ransomware attackers don’t know the identities of their victims. They send out ransomware attacks, such as phishing emails, rather indiscriminately. If they get anyone to install the virus on a computer terminal, they’ve succeeded. Most individuals don’t know what to do, and will pay the ransom out of desperation.
According to a Cybersecurity Special Report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and RSM, 23% of middle-market company executives reported at least ransomware ransom or attack in 2022. This demonstrates how any brand can be vulnerable to ransomware attacks, not just big businesses.
If you think your small business is safe just because you’ve been fortunate enough not to run into a ransomware attack yet, think again. Sooner or later, you and your employees will know what to do when you’re targeted (albeit blindly) by a ransomware-armed cybercriminal.
By nature, each ransomware virus demands a ransom from its victim. Some business owners and individuals think that paying the ransom demand is safer, especially if the ransom message says that the criminal will delete sensitive data or expose sensitive files if payments aren’t made ASAP.
In truth, you should never pay a ransom demand if a device is infected with a ransomware virus. Ransomware creators can’t be trusted – they’re criminals, after all. More importantly, there’s nothing stopping those criminals from carrying out whatever ill ideas they have in mind after you fork over the cash.
It’s a much better idea to work with incident response or IR cybersecurity specialists. They can deal with ransomware attacks, evaluate the situation, and help you get access to sensitive data quickly without having to pay the bad actors. Even if paying the ransom is the right move, you should only do it with a cybersecurity negotiator on your team.
Whatever you do, don’t keep a ransomware attack to yourself. Inform your employees or your cybersecurity specialists so the proper response can begin at the earliest opportunity.
Strong antivirus software is certainly a great tool in your overall digital defense toolkit. However, it won’t universally keep yourself or your company safe from ransomware and other malware attacks.
The truth is that digital defenses must constantly keep up with newly evolving viruses and cyber attack threat vectors. Even the best antivirus firewall can have gaps in its armor from time to time. Therefore, a new ransomware virus that hasn’t been detected and studied before might slip through and attack your business’s sensitive files.
Furthermore, many ransomware attacks occur through antivirus software because of employee negligence. One of the most common vectors for ransomware is a phishing email, which is a scam email that installs a virus onto a user terminal when it is opened.
Therefore, you can’t just rely on antivirus to keep your enterprise safe. You must also:
It might be tempting to think that backing up your sensitive data is enough to protect you if the worst comes to pass if your business crashes with a ransomware attack. However, backups can’t always be relied upon to save the day, nor can they always protect your brand from reputational damage amongst your customers.
In fact, many cybercriminals now have advanced malicious tactics to compromise backup files, locking them down or deleting them if ransomware victims don’t pay the fines.
So-called double extortion attacks involve cybercriminals encrypting and stealing data at the same time. So even if you do have a backup of key data ready to go, the criminals can still leak that sensitive data unless you pay the demanded ransom.
Given these threats, you shouldn’t merely rely on backups to protect your business and its reputation. Instead, keep the above tips in mind – such as training your employees and hiring cybersecurity specialists – to shore up your business’s digital defenses as much as possible.
Are You Properly Backing Up Your Business Data?
As you can see, ransomware is far more dangerous than you may have initially realized. Even though some of your ideas about ransomware have been busted, remember that you can protect your business and your personal files by working with the right security partners.
At LI Tech, our capable specialists can draw up a list of security best practices for you and your employees to follow. We also offer a spread of managed cloud security services in Long Island, NYC. Contact us today to see how we can keep you safe from ransomware.
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Every modern organization collects a wealth of data on its customers, clients, and more. But that data must be protected and easily retrieved in the event of an IT infrastructure outage or cyberattack. This guide explains why you should properly back up your business data and how data protection solutions safeguard your data for maximum protection.
Businesses just like yours must back up crucial data for two key reasons:
Imagine a scenario in which you have all your customer relationship data included on a single server. However, that server crashes and the data is lost. At that point, you now have to start from scratch rebuilding your consumer relationships, including the contact information, their preferred methods of contact, and more.
Backing up all business data is important, but two specific types of data are more vital than others.
As touched on above, you must keep sensitive client or customer data secured and backed up at all times. Customer data includes personal identifying information, order histories, personal preferences, and much more.
You’ll also want to protect company-specific data, like passwords for your servers, sensitive organizational information like your order flow or vendor ID codes, and so on.
The last thing you want is a cybercriminal gaining access to sensitive corporate data, then blackmailing you by threatening to release that information to your competitors or your customers.
Read more in our blog: What Is Data Protection? Why It’s Important and Why Cybersecurity Can’t Be Separate
Given the importance of backing up crucial company data, it’s wise to implement a back up policy ASAP. But many companies may not properly back up their business data.
For example, they may simply copy over important files once a month onto a separate hard drive. Or they might use secondary or subpar technologies to back up server files, only to find that a server outage results in most of the data being lost during a single unlucky incident.
If your company hopes to back up data properly, you need to use the right technologies, methodologies, and services. Data protection solutions include:
Read more in our blog: 4 Dangerous Ransomware Myths Proven False
Above all else, the best way to properly back up your business data is to rely on managed services providers like LI Tech Solutions.
As dedicated managed IT services providers in Long Island, New York, our enterprise data protection solutions and other services are just what you need to make sure your data is backed up safely and correctly every single time.
LI Tech’s disaster recovery services are designed to insulate your business and sensitive data from all manner of hazards, ranging from cloud or other technology breakdowns to operator errors to cyber sabotage to environmental calamities and more.
Specifically, we take several key steps to safeguard your data, apps, and systems before that crucial digital information is lost. These steps include:
If your business ever encounters a disaster that causes its infrastructure to collapse or its data to be lost, you can rest assured that LI Tech’s backups will have you “back up” and running in no time.
More than that, LI Tech takes responsibility for scheduling and implementing regular data backups for your organization. With regular backups, all crucial data should be secured on the cloud or elsewhere. You’ll never run into the disaster scenario where sensitive data created or collected a day previously is lost because of an ill-timed server outage.
As an added benefit, when you hire us to schedule your data backup services, your people can focus on other elements of your business.
Data Protection in the Cloud: Challenges and Best Practices 2024
In addition to the above services, LI Tech Solutions will plan and carry out a full IT infrastructure review for your organization if you choose. The infrastructure review can identify:
Armed with this information, we’ll then upgrade or streamline your IT infrastructure depending on what you need. Such improvements can lower the likelihood of data loss entirely or protect your business from catastrophe.
All in all, LI Tech is the number one managed IT services provider on Long Island, NYC. We serve brands just like yours by offering not only disaster recovery and data backup services but also IT security services and more. Contact us today to see how we can help your brand thrive in the modern digital environment!
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