With ransomware being such a large threat across the globe, it is important to understand where the areas at risk are and the best ways to minimise the risk.
Within the last year the UK has been the second most attacked country in the world (with the US being the first) for ransomware attacks.
Ransomware attacks are attacks that encrypt data on a computer network making it impossible for user to interpret the data. For the data to be surrendered back to the user a ransom payment is demanded.
Many different sectors of industry have been affected by ransomware attacks, with the most commonly affected sectors being the services and education industries.
The services industry is the largest in the UK so it is expected that this would be the largest target for attackers.
The education sector is a much smaller industry within the UK which is significant for how targeted it is. The specific target of the education industry is for a range of reasons, however, the leading factors are the often weaker security due to the strict budget organisations operate within and the amount of valuable data held by these organisations.
Here are a few useful tips to protect yourself from ransomware threats:
- We recommended that you always have a comprehensive offsite backup.
- Ensure applications and software are running the latest version.
- Ensure effective endpoint protection is installed across your network.