Ransomware attacks are on the rise during this era of remote work

In the wake of the pandemic, numerous organizations have changed the way they do business in a fundamental way. In many cases, they’ve relaxed the ways they manage employees. They no longer enforce rigid rules about employees being in certain office locations at certain times – instead, they give people the freedom to set their own schedules and work from their own locations.

But having said all this, there’s one area in which companies definitely can’t relax, and that’s security fortification.

According to Forbes, “ransomware complacency” is a very real problem that’s gripped the business world over the last couple of years. Corporate leaders have become numb to the idea that security threats are out there, and they’ve started to be oblivious about the pitfalls of a possible ransomware attack. And now, it’s important to note, is the wrong time to get complacent. Ransomware attacks actually increased by 92.7% year-over-year between 2020 and ‘21, an increase that many experts attribute to the increase in remote work during the pandemic.

Ransomware complacency is a compounding problem – the more companies overlook the risk of a ransomware attack, the more they stand to be impacted by one. Forbes also noted that in 2021, the average amount of downtime that a company suffers from a ransomware attack increased from 15 days to 22. This is largely because of the confusion and chaos that organizations have to deal with when an attack happens and they’re not prepared for it.

Combating the issue of ransomware complacency isn’t easy, but one thing’s for sure – the best approach is a comprehensive one. Simply investing in one antivirus tool or one endpoint security solution isn’t going to cut it. Today’s security landscape is so complex that a multi-layered security infrastructure is essential. This should include attack detection and blocking capabilities as well as a data backup and disaster recovery strategy that’s designed to maintain business continuity.

At Zones, we believe that the first step toward building a more secure organization is clear visibility. That’s the idea behind our Cyber Vigilant services – we help clients to collect system-generated logs, real-time alerts, and detailed notes of all suspicious activities in their environment. This makes it easier for them to detect potential attacks before they even happen. With this comprehensive knowledge of their IT, organizations are well equipped to stay safe.

This is a core component of our business philosophy. At Zones, we’ve always believed that security is the number one priority – that’s why we work tirelessly to protect our clients’ endpoints, networks, data centers, and cloud environments. We’ve always known the importance of Security Fortification, and we understand as well as anyone that it’s only become more important during these challenging times. Now is no time to get complacent – on the contrary, it’s a time to connect with us and take your business’ security to the next level.

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