You may have heard the term ransomware before in the news but have you ever wondered what it really means?
Ransomware are particularly nasty viruses that infect computers over the network and encrypt your personal or company data so you will not have access to it. Afterwards they lock the computer with a popup that demands a ransom fee to unlock all your data that is usually paid in cryptocurrency such as bitcoin.
Ransomware are notorious for spreading and infecting other machines within internal networks and can often seem like you are at gunpoint with your sensitive date.
The biggest Ransomware attack just occurred in the begging of this month. The Virus called “WannaCry” targeted mainly business computers and were able to lock many office computers in a network. The biggest victim was the NHS which caused a massive downtime in the response units.
Many business were hit around the world with roughly 250,000 PC’s were infected by the WannaCry ransomware viruses. Because of this crisis, Cyber Insurance has risen by 30% after the WannaCry attacks. Although some ransoms had a small pay out of £300. Other targeted viruses were aimed at larger companies with some ransoms going up to £20,000.
Mr Newman from CFC Underwriting has stated that Cyber Insurance Claims can range from £10,000 to £50,000 for small to medium-sized business. These figures are justified by the recovery of the IT infrastructure and clean up by IT specialists who can guarantee that the Ransomware can be stopped. This is ideal rather than paying up for the ransom demand. As a result if you chose to pay the ransom, you may be at risk of exposing sensitive information about your company.
As more companies are moving to the cloud and becoming more IT savvy. Potential risks such as Ransomware are trending and targeting many small business. We do recommend that companies should at least cover a very basic cyber insurance policy.
For more information: Financial Times
After a ransomware attack, the very first thing you need to do is engage a Loss Assessor. Loss Assessors can often seek and investigate professional cyber security experts who would analyse the extent of the damage. Consequently a report would be create explaining the events which occurred and the damage which followed. Alongside a proposal for recovery and ways to patch any vulnerabilities can also be included.
Loss Assessors can use financial forecasting of the business to determine how your business would be performing had the claim had not occurred. It can be a challenging process however, this can help your business get back up and running and return you to pre-loss growth track.
For more information: Business Interruption
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