On May 7, 2021, Colonial Pipeline, who controls roughly 45% of the fuel for the entire East Coast, was hacked. A note from hackers was found on a control-room computer stating that their systems had been breached and that Colonial Pipeline would not regain access to their systems unless a steep ransom was paid in exchange for a decryption tool that would unlock the systems the hackers attacked.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the CEO of Colonial Pipeline Co. authorized $4.4 million in ransom payment and lost tens of millions of dollars over the course of a 6 day shut down.
An operation that controls nearly half of the gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel for the East Coast was shut down in an instant due to a hacker attack. Are you sure YOUR business is properly protected against hackers?
Does Your Business Have Good Security Hygiene?
The thing about cybercriminals is that they don’t discriminate. Whether you’re a small business or a massive corporation who provides services to millions of Americans, you can be susceptible to a cyber-attack. How confident are you that your business has the proper security and systems in place to ensure you are protected?
In a recent interview with The Verge, Leslie Gordon, acting director for homeland security and justice at the watchdog Government Accountability Office (GAO) states that, “Companies are regularly failing to practice even basic security hygiene, which leaves critical infrastructure open to attack. Good security hygiene can include relatively simple things like requiring multi-factor authentication, having response plans ready, and keeping backup systems in place. With Colonial Pipeline, failing to keep its network segmented — so that bad actors (hackers) can’t easily hop from one piece of the system to the next — was a big problem that shows a lack of cyber hygiene. Colonial’s IT system was attacked, but that was connected to the company’s operating system, so it shut that down, too.”
Makes you questions the strength of your security measures, right? It’s not always a case of hackers being especially good at what they do, but more often than not, it’s a case of basic cybersecurity points not being in place.
What is Ransomware and How Can It Affect Your Business?
Ransomware is a form of malware (malicious software) used to attack and encrypt computer systems. Once these attacks are in place, a business, like yours, will be demanded to pay a ransom in order to regain access to the entire computer systems or specific important files the
hackers have taken hostage through ransomware. The ransom is demanded in exchange for an encryption tool to decrypt and access the files. Often times, the ransom is paid, and the files are never encrypted. The hackers simply disappear with their ransom money, leaving a business at a financial deficit for paying the ransom and without the important data that was encrypted and they may never get back.
Can You Prevent a Ransomware Attack?
Partnering with an IT Company like Brea Networks can significantly raise your chances of protecting against cyber-attacks. We utilize a secure data protection solution from our partners at Datto to protect client data, securing data first with “two-factor authentication and the immutable Datto Cloud to deliver the all-in-one solution for backup and recovery in a ransomware world.”
The goal is to create a first line of defense to keep hackers out, but by implementing the right backup tools, we ensure that even if data is penetrated, we have the proper backups in place to restore any lost data with “100% Recovery Confidence”.
Cybercriminals are out there waiting for you to slip up, which is why you should be 100% confident you have the right protections in place.
If you are unsure about your level of cyber protection, contact Brea Networks today. We offer preemptive maintenance, desktop and infrastructure support, cybersecurity, and optimized business continuity. Contact us today to ensure your business stays secure and productive at affordable prices and the highest level of quality and efficiency.
