Another day, another ransomware attack in the news. This time a company called Eurofins became the victim and it affected its operation across 47 countries, including the UK where it supplies forensic analysis services to the UK Police. This follows attacks on Norsk Hydro where 22,000 users were taken down, the UK Police Federation and Abei Schmidt. These are high profile cases affecting large companies. The attacks on SMEs don’t make the news but are happening every day.
There are two main types of ransomware attack;
The traditional one where a user unwittingly clicks on an email and starts a series of events on the network that culminates in the loss of all PCs and the encryption of the data on the server. For this sort of attack we are reliant on a comprehensive, multi layered backup to protect and restore the data. The downtime will vary but will range from several days to several weeks.
The newer type is where you are specifically targeted. The hacker will gain access to the network though various means and over a period of time, find and disable the backups. Once this is done the data will be encrypted and a ransom will be demanded. The likely outcome from this is the loss of all data.
The first type of attack is commonplace, the second is a lot rarer.
Can you please remind all staff not to click on any link or attachment where they are not 100% sure where it has come from and what it contains. Unfortunately, no one is immune from this.
The technical defences will do the best they can, but the best defence against this sort of attack is user awareness.
