The Growing Dangers of Ransomware

You’ve probably heard about it in the news, on TV, in a recent tweet or during a conversation at work. Does it sometimes feel like the threat of ransomware is everywhere these days?

Recently, you may have heard about the Kaseya ransomware attack. This horrendous and sophisticated cyberattack – known as the most significant ransomware attack on record – did not negatively impact Andar Software. Still, our Director of IT, Kendall Longley, always pays close attention to the increasing amount of cybercrimes in today’s climate.

During the attack, hackers infiltrated a key software vendor called Kaseya and confiscated troves of data while demanding a $70 million bitcoin payment for its return. Kaseya says that between 800 and 1,500 businesses were compromised, and this attack affected all different types of companies. For example, more than 800 Coop supermarket chain stores in Sweden had to temporarily close as they could not open their cash registers.

The REvil Group is thought to be responsible for the Kaseya attack. The REvil group is a suspected Russia-based hacking group that has been linked to several other major breaches. REvil acts as a business that sells hacking technology and other tools to third-party hackers. REvil members have created online infrastructure on the dark web, a part of the Internet that search engines like Google don’t track, for other hackers to post stolen documents and collect ransomware payments from the victim.

The growing dangers of cybercrime attacks are apparent and is one of the most severe security problems modern businesses now face.

With the acceleration of digital transformation – primarily due to the rise of remote work – new opportunities emerged for cybercriminals to maximize profit by exploiting this new climate.

Frightening Facts about Ransomware

Amid COVID-19, global organizations saw a 148% increase in ransomware attacks (VMWare)
Experts estimate that a ransomware attack will occur every 11 seconds in 2021 (Cyber Security Ventures)
The average downtime a company experiences after a ransomware attack is 21 days (Coveware)
The cost of ransomware attacks worldwide will go beyond $265 billion in the next decade (ZD Net)

Our Commitment to Safety and Security

It is now more crucial than ever to ensure that Andar Software offers a secure and safe cloud hosting environment. Our commitment to our customers is to provide state-of-the-art hosting infrastructure and unparalleled cloud hosting services.

“We know that fundraising and campaign success relies on the availability, speed, and performance of Andar/360 and that the environment that our customers run it in must be reliable and secure”, says Harry Veening, General Manager, Andar Software.

Recently, we’ve made substantial upgrades to Andar Software Hosting services and infrastructure that include the following:

Enhanced data and network protection by implementing additional layers of security, isolation, and segregation to mitigate risks while improving performance
Enhanced 24/7 monitoring and response of your data, applications and services through new technology solutions and partnerships with the leaders in Cybersecurity
Added next-generation anti-virus with early detection and response, intrusion detection and intrusion prevention systems, web application firewalls (WAF) while improving recovery point objectives (RPO) and recovery time objectives (RTO) by increasing backup frequency with extended data retention
Strengthened our disaster recovery services to be the first line of defense in the aftermath of a disruptive event to prevent any negative impact on all of our customers

Kendall Longley, Director of IT says, “These game-changing upgrades and partnerships are necessities to provide confidence to all of our customers that the safety and security of their data and our hosting environments are our number #1 priority. Our security measures are reassessed and improved annually to ensure the highest level of protection.”

Unfortunately, new ransomware groups pop up all the time, and the FBI says that they are currently tracking more than 100 active ransomware groups. Authorities have a hard time cracking down on the ransomware problem, so the best anyone can do is ensure that they are safe and protected by a reputable cloud hosting provider, like Andar Software.