You arrive at your office, boot up your computer… and receive a chilling message. All of your data has been “locked” and you can’t access it unless you pay a ransom to the hackers. You need that data back right away! All of your client accounts are inaccessible, and your company is basically shut down until you can get your information back. Not to mention, your clients are now at risk. You know that this could turn into a public relations nightmare or even a lawsuit.
Against all good advice, you decide to go ahead and pay the ransom. There’s no time to waste; you need to get your business back up and running, and you don’t have any other way to recover this data. So, you take a deep breath and send that ransom money, exactly as instructed…
And nothing happens. Your data is never unlocked. No one answers your pleas for mercy. All of that information once stored in your system is just… gone.
No, this isn’t the plot to a tech-heavy Hulu drama series, nor is it just a bad dream. This is a real scenario that is happening to business owners right now, who have fallen prey to the Petya virus.
Petya looks like your typical ransomware attack, which is bad enough. But when people pay the ransom, nothing happens. Their data is never unlocked. It was actually wiped from their computers all along.
In nearly every instance, data lost to the Petya virus cannot be recovered. As we say all of the time, this is precisely why it’s so important to back up your data – not just within your system, on another machine, but also in another location outside of your network (like a cloud). In the event that Petya or another wiper virus does strike, your data is safe and secure somewhere else. You can recover it, life goes on, and most importantly your business goes on.
For more information on network security or backing up your data in a secure location, give us a call at 888-RING-MY-TECH.
