- Colonial Pipeline pays out $4.4 million in May 2021.
- Brenntag, a chemical distribution company, pays out $4.4 million in May 2021.
- ACER pays out $50 million in May 2021.
- JBS Foods pays out $14m in June 2021.
- Reputation loss, stock market price crash, disruption to business or day to day operations which also has a quantifiable cost.
Reputation loss, stock market price crash, disruption to business or day to day operations which also has a quantifiable cost.
- Ensure that your sensitive data is stored in a software database application such as Excelitte in an encrypted format. The hacker may not even know what database file to copy/steal even after gaining access to the computer system.
- Most of the data targeted for ransomware are held or located in Windows file types such as XLS, PDF, Word and can be captured in an actual database system. The database file now holding the data won't be an obvious Windows one, can be encrypted, and can't be opened or viewed easily.
- If you must store files in these types of docs, ensure that you at least encrypt them or secure them with a strong generated password and back the files up securely. By following these steps, no one else can view the data and if it is deleted you can recover it from the back up.
- Even if the bad actor did find the database file and stole it, decrypting the data to view it is almost impossible. This means the data cannot be used or published in any way, shape, or form which negates the blackmail threat.
- If the data is captured or stored in a tool, like Excelitte, it is automatically backed up weekly or every day and sent to the user's email account. The stolen data is easily recoverable in the following manner.
- First reformat, delete, wipe the desktop or server computer or virtual machine clean and rebuild the system. This will get rid of the ransomware or malware infection from the computer system.
- Next, the Excelitte software database application or similar is re-installed.
- Then the database backup file that you receive every day or weekly by email is re-imported back into Excelitte. If your email account has also been compromised, Excelitte has one more method of recovering your data.
After applying the above, everything should be back to normal, no data loss or exposure, no millions paid out.
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