The major targets of ransomware should really protect themselves

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Ransomware is one of the most dangerous Internet-related threats at the moment. With no real solutions, prevention is key, especially for its major targets.

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In terms of cyber security, one of the biggest problems of 2016 was the rise of ransomware, and this year should be no different. Everyone can be a victim, and its effects can be completely catastrophic, because of the way ransomware infections are designed.

Put simply, when ransomware infects a device, most of the files (the ones with most popular extensions) become encrypted. Then, in order to decrypt them, victims must pay the hackers to obtain the decryption keys. If they fail to pay within the deadline, the keys will be destroyed and those files will be forever unusable.

One of the worst aspects of ransomware is that there are not many ways to protect our devices. The most effective way to protect against this threat still is to have a strong backup plan for important data. A good example is the one offered by Acronis Cloud Backup, which features solutions for cold disaster recovery, like in the event of a ransomware attack.

Companies are the primary targets of ransomware, as their systems are most likely to store valuable databases with confidential data, important documents, and other sensitive information. Police and governmental authorities are also often targeted, mostly in order to incapacitate their operations and investigations.

Health and educational organizations are also no strangers to these attacks, neither are financial companies. Recently, even a hotel got attacked by ransomware, with its electronic locks being disabled and guests locked outside their rooms.

However, quite often these attacks do not target someone or some organization specifically – anyone can be targeted, as these threats are planted in malicious files, just waiting for some unwary user to open them and trigger their device’s infection.

As said above, there are currently not a lot of defense mechanisms or tools. In fact, the most important line of defense is prevention –this applies to companies and individual users alike. Having backups of important files and data is vital, something that Acronis Cloud Backup can help with.