Cybercrime is a serious and growing business risk. The developing threat is becoming an attractive way for criminals to steal information, money or disrupt business globally. Australia is one of the countries where cybercrime is a growing problem. In a survey conducted by PWC’s 2018 Global State of Information Security, it is reported that cyber-attack is costing Australia AU$1 billion annually and according to ACORN Statistics, from January to March 2018 a total of 51% of cybercrimes reported are scams and frauds and in April to June it increased to 52%.

Ransomware keeps on developing as a strategy of extorting money from unfortunate victims. It is one of the most predominant cyber threat worldwide and is probably going to remain so because of its continuing success.

Cybercrime will continue to rise in the next years, and it’s going to become more complex and sophisticated. Cybercriminals have raised the bar when it comes to their quality of service and develop a platform similar to business model as a service which is very popular in the dark web as Ransomware-As-A-Services or RaaS.

RaaS is intended to make cybercrime available to anybody, regardless of how limited their technical or programming skills are. Progressed cybercriminals authors malicious code, at that point make it accessible for others to download and utilize. The creators may give the ransomware to free or energize a little expense front, frequently picking to take a cut of each payment. This boosts a higher volume of attacks and higher payment demands.

Ransomware isn’t just easy to buy and download; it’s additionally simple to spread. In contrast with different sorts of prevalent assaults, you don’t should be technically knowledgeable or have costly hardware, which implies increasingly more cybercriminals are swinging to this kind of act. It likewise creates a quicker payout rather than extracting data. More so, there is a lesser danger of being gotten because of the secrecy of Bitcoin.

The market for this kind of ransomwares are widespread. A crypto ransomware called Stampado was discovered by an online security company, Heimdal, which is sold in the dark net for an affordable price of $39. Stampado intends to lock you out of your system and encrypts your files and secured data. A victim is given 96 hours to pay the ransom and if ransom isn’t paid, it will delete a random files from the infected computer every six hours.

A number of other RaaS is also available in the dark net such as GandCrab, Crysis, Cerber, and the recently launched this year Anatova.

To protect your business from these ransomware threats, we listed some preventive measures and strategies your business can follow:

1. AVOID SUSPICIOUS LINKS AND ATTACHMENTS

An infection usually starts with phishing emails. By clicking malicious links you can easily be infected and next thing you know your data are all encrypted and your system catch a ransomware software. Minimising the visits to unknown websites and avoiding being enticed by clickbait is one way to prevent it.  It is also important to scan first your email attachments before opening.

2. USE RELIABLE ANTIVIRUS AND ANTIMALWARE

Your antivirus and antimalware software is an important tool to prevent your system from getting infected by ransomwares. It is your first layer of security. These solutions cannot offer 100% protection from cyberattacks but it can ensure your system is clean from potential threats and dangers caused by ransomware attacks.

3. KEEP SYSTEM UP-TO-DATE AND PATCHED

Software updates and patches do a lot of things and offer many benefits. These includes repairing security holes and vulnerabilities. Cyber criminals take advantage of these security flaws and target the weakness by writing codes and creating malicious software to infect PC’s and systems. Software updates often include software patches that fixes bugs and vulnerabilities so keeping your operating system and software application up-to-date is a must.

4. BACK-UP YOUR DATA

Data is an essential aspect of your business and keeping duplicate copies is important so you can easily recover information when an unexpected happens. Cloud back up offers advanced data security capabilities and end-to-end encryption keeping all your data secured and protected.

5. HAVE A BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN READY

Having a Business Continuity Plan in place helps business respond and recover to unexpected security incidents. One in four businesses in Australia suffer 25 hours or more downtime when hit by cyber attack. To avoid potential disruption of business and its operations and mitigate the risks of cyber attack it is essential that you implement a plan before disaster strikes.

With the rampant ransomware attacks increasing day-by-day, it’s about time you equipped your business with multiple layers of security to protect your resources and data.  Do you need more information about implementing multi-layer of security to your business? Contact our IT experts at 1300 337 984 or chat with us live by visiting our website Motionwave Technologies.