Nearly 86% of small businesses often become easy targets of cybercriminals each year since they rarely have solid and effective cybersecurity measures and expertise. Small business ransomware attacks can come with devastating consequences, forcing many to remain inoperable during the attack. Many lack an incident response plan, and of those who do have them, nearly one-third haven’t tested them in the past six months. 60% of small businesses might not survive after a successful cyberattack. And it’s due to the heavy costs of data recovery and business interruption costs. While these numbers are quite alarming, businesses with a focus on cyber resilience often have the upper hand to resist an attack. This blog shares insights on ransomware and its worse effect on small businesses, common ransomware attacks and best practices to protect small businesses from ransomware attacks.
Understanding ransomware for small businesses
Cybercriminals are fully aware that small businesses hardly have enough money in the bank and, they rarely have IT support systems, and thus, they take up small to medium size businesses as they hardly have the options for recovering the data.
What do we mean by ransomware attack?
Ransomware is a type of malware that hackers use to lock down computers, denying access to files and systems. They usually encrypt files, making it impossible for users to open them without a special decryption key. They usually threaten to leak sensitive company information if the ransom isn’t paid. Sad news, paying the ransom doesn’t always solve the problem. While 80% of respondents paid the ransom, 25% still couldn’t recover their data as confirmed by the research.
Common types of ransomware attacks
Cybercriminals have a bag of tricks to get malware on people’s computers. Here are some of the most common ransomware attacks targeting small businesses:
- Phishing: Scam emails and texts that trick users into handing over their passwords and login information.
- Malware email attachments: Emails containing attachments full of malware.
- Drive-by attacks: Malware that gets downloaded just by visiting a compromised website.
- Software vulnerabilities: Taking advantage of unpatched weaknesses of servers to break into computer systems.
Effect of ransomware attacks on small businesses
- Reputational damage
Small businesses rely very much on their reputation to attract and retain customers. In case they fall into ransomware attack, it can severely harm their reputation and shake the trust of current and future clients. Additionally, in case they go public about the attack, it can attract bad press, which can damage the brand’s image and future prospects.
- Financial losses
Ransomware attacks can really leave small businesses dented hard financially. There’s not only the ransom asked for by hackers but costs that could build up quickly, from getting back on track and retrieving lost data. Furthermore, businesses may be down with productivity, lose customers, or even face complete losses during such attacks.
- Legal and regulatory consequences
Legal and regulatory issues are some of the challenges a small business may face after a ransomware attack. This can, however, vary with industry or location. If customer-sensitive data is compromised, a small business may be bound by breach notification rules and data protection regulations that can result in a fine or penalty. Things are much tougher for firms with fewer resources and lesser knowledge.
Tips to protect small businesses from ransomware attacks
1. Create a disaster recovery plan
Having a disaster recovery plan is super important since 96% of organizations faced at least one downtime incident between 2019 and 2022. Even though only about half of organisations have a DR plan and around 7% never put theirs to the test, these elements can really help lessen the blow of a ransomware attack.
A solid disaster recovery plan should cover:
- Clear downtime and data loss tolerance: RTO and RPO help determine how much downtime and data loss your business can tolerate.
- A trained DR team: This team assumes specific roles during a disaster, managing communication and ensuring everyone is aware of the emergency response procedures.
- Alternative workspaces: If the office becomes inaccessible, having remote work strategies keeps the business running smoothly.
- Access over remote: With secure technologies like VPN and SSH, there is safe access of the company data from an off-premises network.
- Backups are safe: Saving in three different formats; on two different media and at one place or in cloud offsite, following 3-2-1 strategy for recovery of data.
- Thorough testing strategy: It makes sure the DR plan works well when faced in the actual disaster situation.
This blog might help you create an effective disaster recovery plan
2. Regular data backup
Backing up all your data involves copying it in other formats:
- Cloud backups are convenient and easy to access, but they’re susceptible to cyber threats that could mess up your data.
- On the other hand, physical and local backups stay with you, but they have their own risks, such as being stolen or damaged.
- The offsite backup, either physical or digital, brings added security, but it is relatively slower to recover from.
Relying on only one backup method is a bit of a gamble. Suppose a cloud service is hacked. You might end up restoring data that’s still infected with malware. While 92% of businesses do back up, 31% of them are unable to recover during a ransomware attack often because they haven’t set up multiple backup methods or kept them updated. Having a diverse backup strategy enhances your security; if one method fails, the others are still safe. Regular updating and testing of the backups will keep them clean of malware and ensure their functionality.
This blog shares practical tips to secure your data while backing it up.
3. Three factor authentication
To prevent hackers from accessing your accounts from about 99.9% of locations, it’s a good idea to use three-factor authentication.
The three factors are:
- Something you know (username and password)
- Something you have (hardware token)
- Something you are (biometric like your fingerprint)
Google’s approach to using three-factor authentication, with a hardware token has really changed the game. This method is an extra layer of protection, making it tough for hackers to break in. In 2023, Google tried to move away from passwords by introducing them, aiming to ditch them altogether for authentication.
4. Update systems
Monthly and weekly patch schedules really can raise the risks of a data breach happening for your organisation. This should be replaced by a continuous vulnerability management program, where vulnerabilities on the network are scanned daily, coupled with patches on all these vulnerabilities discovered. This greatly minimises the risk by significantly reducing the time that a known vulnerability sits on your network, unpicked. Cybercriminals are always looking for easy prey to boost their profits, and known vulnerabilities are what they look for. Automation and AI have also made the process of encrypting an organisation take less than 45 minutes on average, taking just under 6 minutes.
5. Use strong password
Cybercriminals usually break into important systems by taking advantage of weak passwords and then install malware to take complete control. In 2020, password dumper malware, which is designed to pull and steal passwords from a victim’s computer or network, accounted for 40% of breaches related to malware. After getting higher privileges and locking out admin access, these attackers can start encrypting your data and demanding a ransom. One way to improve your security so that your account is secured from initial breaches is by creating a strong password policy.
6. Create ransomware response plan
A ransomware response plan is simply a game plan for fighting a ransomware attack. It starts with the speed of quickly determining the scope of the attack and isolating the affected systems, so it does not spread. The plan also includes methods of securely communicating within the organisation and to external parties in order to keep trust and handle public relations during a cyber crisis. On the other hand, businesses without a plan are usually caught off guard, leading to long periods of downtime and even permanent data loss.
7. Provide cyber security awareness training
Employees are not just the front line of defense; they can also unknowingly be insider threats. Despite the importance of security awareness training for reducing these risks, approximately one-third of companies skip providing it to their staff. And even when this training is available, it usually fails in really educating employees on how to combat attacks.
There are a few reasons for this:
- Training is usually basic.
- It’s all about checking boxes for compliance.
- It’s done only once a year.
The material is often dull and boring, so employees rush through it without understanding the important information they need to spot and address threats. This is a big problem since 90% of what’s taught is forgotten within a week if it’s not put into practice. Plus, trying to deliver exciting training, whether in class or online, makes the job even more difficult because many programs are little more than compliance checklists. To address these problems requires a more robust approach, ongoing awareness training that gets support from the top tiers of the organisation. Regular training can reduce risks from 60% to 10% in the first year alone. Training should go beyond simple phishing tests to include campaigns with vishing and/or smishing, as informed by department leaders, to create the most realistic scenarios.
According to the OAIC, out of 40 breaches affecting over 5,000 Australians, 33 were cyber security issues. So, what is the solution?
Cyber resilience!
You can imagine it as a cycle, following ITIL service lifecycle phases of strategy, structure, transition, process, and improvement. With Raksha IT’s top-notch cyber resiliency practices, cutting-edge tech, and expertise, you can ensure to protect your most critical applications and data while accelerating the restoration of any data breach or disruption.
