Will Vladimir Putin save your business from ransomware?

By David Scott, Managing Member at Avid Communications

The New York Times, in an otherwise informative editorial last month, came to the astounding conclusion that American businesses were defenseless in the face of organized ransomware attacks from Russia, and the only hope was for the Biden Administration to pressure Vladimir Putin to clamp down on this activity.

I don’t know about you but I don’t feel good about pinning the fate of my business on the goodwill of Vladimir Putin. Fortunately I don’t have to, and neither do you.

Statistics

The Times’ editorial is chock-full of alarming statistics about the cost of ransomware attacks and their exploding number, including the estimate of 304 million such attacks in 2020 representing a 62% increase over the previous year. 

The Times correctly observed that in spite of recent high-profile attacks on major companies,  “the main prey of the ransomware gangs is the small to medium enterprise.” And I generally agree with their contention that “companies that are small, libraries, fire departments will never afford the required security technology and talent.” But their conclusion that there is no hope short of Putin isn’t true.

Stopping Ransomware

Of course, stopping ransomware isn’t easy, but it is possible. Avid is working with Kansas City’s IT providers to implement endpoint security that defeats the ransomware threat. We have invested a lot of money and time in the resources, talent and systems that are required. 

It’s simply too expensive for our clients to do this on their own, but when we spread the costs over our large base of clients, suddenly the solution is within reach. More information about our cybersecurity services is available in our recent Avid delivers powerful, behavior based endpoint security for small and medium businesses article.

So if you’re not already convinced that ransomware is an existential threat to your business, read the editorial. If you are, call Avid. We can help you reclaim lost sleep over this one.