If you’ve been out of the country, or haven’t been plugged into the news as of late, you may not be aware of ransomware and what that is. Needless to say, there’s been an increase of ransomware attacks, especially on US corporations, particularly exploding over the past 6 months.
On May 15, 2021, our hosting environment (QCloud), was attacked and brought down by the Conti ransomware group. This is one of the Top 5, most sophisticated ransomware groups in the world.
QFloors was able to successfully defend ourselves against this attack, being out of service for only four calendar days and not paying the demanded ransom. For reference, according to one news article, the average outage time right now for a ransomware attack is 21 days, and the average ransom is $300,000. (Although it is much, much higher for larger companies.)
We encourage all QFloors customers - whether operating on a cloud environment or not, to educate yourselves about this serious potential threat that has emerged. All businesses, small or large, are at risk of being targeted.
In addition, as you know, sometimes you may experience an internet outage, a power outage, a natural disaster, theft, or other events that make it difficult for you to run your business as normal. So it is important to be prepared for any of these unexpected events.
We have created a webinar of a live event discussing the attack and important tips for protecting and preparing yourself. If you haven’t already seen it, please watch it. We’ve also created a knowledge base article on things you should consider implementing to safeguard your business, not only from ransomware, but from other outages. For instance, how will you write up a sales order? Can you still run a credit card? Think about your operation and how you can keep things moving, if necessary, during a temporary outage. Preparation is your greatest defense.
