4 Ways Ransomware Companies Behave Like Legitimate Businesses

The nefarious firms that target your data have become pretty sophisticated operations.

Ransomware -- applications that encrypt all the data on a computer then demand payment to unlock it -- have become a pervasive threat to businesses.

Last Friday’s WannaCry attack was unusual in its scope, with reports that 10,000 organizations were hit in 150 countries, but business owners are no stranger to ransomware. Close to half of U.S. companies have been victims of ransomware attacks, according to a 2016 report from Osterman Research.

While the sums demanded are generally low, the costs have been going up. Symantec reports that the average ransom was $679 in 2016, up from $294 in 2015. The FBI estimated ransomware firms would collect $1 billion in 2016.

And that’s just the attacks that are reported. Because the ransom amounts are often less than what would be covered by insurance, and no data is actually compromised, many victims keep it to themselves. Less than one in four attacks are reported to authorities, according to Datto, a company that helps companies back up and recover their data.

Datto has seen first-hand the rise of ransomware incidents.

“At first it was an anomaly. And then over time ended up being something that really just started to affect our partners almost en masse,” CEO Austin McChord says. Read more

Liz Webber - Entrepreneur - 15 May 2017