University hit 21 times in one year by ransomware
August 2016 by John Madelin CEO at RelianceACSN
Following the news that Bournemouth University suffered an incredible 21 ransomware attacks in 12 months, please find the below commentary from John Madelin CEO at RelianceACSN. Hopefully this will help with any stories that you might be writing on ransomware.
Ransomware is an effective model because it goes for the critical information that organisations really don’t want to end up in the public domain. The fact that we are seeing a spike in these types of attacks shows that people are paying the ransom and therefore fuelling the system. If no one paid, the model would be made redundant. The truth is hackers don’t need to waste their efforts, time and money launching a complicated Zero Day assaults when a simple phishing email sadly still works just as well.
On average companies use a staggering 75 separate cyber-defence systems to police their networks. Each one acting in silo. It’s this mix and match security patchwork, that lulls companies into a false sense of security when in reality their businesses remain incredibly exposed. Until organisations get the security basics right, including regular back-ups and a proper security procedure, the ransomware model will continue to thrive.- John Madelin, CEO at RelianceACSN.