As unpleasant an option as it is, victims of ransomware attacks often just pay up in order to recover sensitive data. Nutter’s Seth Berman and James Gately offer an alternative.
Ransomware attacks hit suddenly and without apparent warning. One morning, your computers don’t function. You quickly realize you’ve been hacked: Your data has been stolen and your servers, along with all your crucial data, have been encrypted. In short, your business is crippled.
The attackers leave clear instructions: They will provide you the decryption key and promise to destroy the copy of the data they’ve stolen if you pay a ransom. They know how big your company is and what being out of business for a few days will cost you. Thus, their multimillion-dollar ransom demand is tailored to you – perhaps the equivalent of several days’ revenue.
Companies facing a ransomware attack have two options: They can rebuild their systems from scratch at great cost over the course of several weeks – all while losing millions in revenue and suffering untold reputational damage – or they can negotiate and ultimately pay a ransom. Because of the realities of the first option, most companies (and their insurers) opt for the second, perpetuating ransomware as a lucrative stream of income for hackers. We…
