Don't pay the ransom: repeat attacks are on the rise

Everyone knows paying the ransom after a ransomware attack is a bad idea…but if you're not anticipating an attack, you might find yourself in a situation where you don't have another recovery option.

There are a million reasons to avoid this - the biggest one being that ransom payments result in repeat attacks. 

A recent article from ThreatPost shows ransom payments serve one primary purpose: to make your already breached company the bull's eye for yet another attack.

Only a tiny percentage of businesses will survive a ransomware attack. Even fewer will survive two!

Side note - 50% of businesses who were attacked a second time experienced the attack within 1-7 days of the first one.

YIKES. You can read all the details HERE.

To make matters worse, researchers found that most companies who were hit more than once had unusable data returned to them if they paid the ransom. Numerous decryptions consecutively corrupted the data.

Ransomware attacks are every business owner's worst nightmare. They happen frequently - and hackers know who's vulnerable—starting with everyone who hasn't backed their data up to a separate and secure location.

My advice? Make sure you've taken reasonable security measures, from secure backups to remote locations. Know your data - how much of it, where it is, and who has access to it.

Put yourself in a position to WIN if you're hit with ransomware. Don't pay the ransom. Past success on the hacker's part encourages another attempt.