Tag: ransomware attack

Ransomware attacks have dominated the headlines over the last two years and will continue to control the cybersecurity agenda going into 2023. While ransomware gangs continue to be successful in extorting money from businesses, those that do pay demands are financing the ransomware industry and further crime.

The Cloud Protection Trends Report 2023, covers four key 'as a Service' scenarios: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), and Backup and Disaster Recovery as a Service (BaaS/DRaaS).

Ransomware and malware have become part and parcel of business in today’s world. Organisations need to be adequately prepared, which means that their data protection strategy must go beyond the traditional backup, restore, and disaster recovery.

With citizens, governments, and businesses more dependent than ever on digital connectivity, one of the most pressing sectoral issues for this decade is cybersecurity. While this issue has been in the public consciousness for some time now, there is still a wide perception gap between organisational executives, who feel positively about their cyber resilience, and security leaders who do not.

The statistics make for worrying reading. According to our Data Protection Trends Report 2022, 97% of South African companies experienced an outage due to a cyberattack in the past 12 months. Of those, almost nine in 10 (86%) suffered a ransomware attack.

The pandemic has put a significant strain on all industry sectors none more so than in healthcare where there was a need to adopt more data-driven planning and decision-making at lightning speed. At a time when expanding remote care, telemedicine, and m-health initiatives have become the order of the day, the spotlight has turned to the safeguarding of sensitive information at a scale comparable to the financial services sector.

South Africans have become accustomed to dealing with crime because we have no other choice. Various sources place South Africa near the pinnacle of lists of the highest crime rates in the world. If you are a South African, or someone living in South Africa, you most likely take a number of precautions at home, work and play to avoid falling victim to crime.

As South Africa battles a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections, all eyes are on how businesses will steady the ship and continue to prepare themselves for future shocks and disruptions. This, coupled with a global surge in cyber attacks, means that digital transformation and acceleration remain as relevant and important, if not more so than ever. 

The world has changed in many respects in recent years, and with this there has also been a significant change in the way we do business. It is this change that has been driving the rapid adoption of cloud technologies – a trend that was hugely accelerated by the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Impacts vary, but in many cases, ransomware disrupts businesses for significant periods or even forces them to suspend operations or close. A growing population of highly capable cyber extortionists is developing a new means to counter defences and increase the level of disruption they can inflict constantly.