Ransomware remains a serious threat, especially for small and medium businesses. According to a recent report by Sophos, 66% of organizations surveyed were hit with ransomware in the past year. And when attacked, adversaries encrypted data in 76% of cases - an increase of 11% over 2022.
The impact of such an attack can be devastating. For businesses with less than $10 million in annual revenue, the average recovery cost, excluding any ransom paid, was over $165,000. Using backups to restore data can significantly reduce costs, with a median recovery price tag averaging half that of for those who payed the ransom.
For small businesses, compromised credentials and phishing or malicious were the most common root causes, cited in 29% and 31% of incidents respectively. This highlights the need for robust multi-factor authentication and security awareness training across organizations.
The business impact of attacks is also disproportionate with small businesses being the hardest hit, with 88% reporting losing business or revenue after ransomware attacks. With smaller cash reserves, even brief periods of disruption can significantly impact bottom lines.
Extended recovery times also plague small teams. Only 8% were back to business as usual in under a day, while over a third took over a month to fully recover normal operations.
With hackers persistently targeting small and mid-sized organizations across sectors, partnering with a managed service provider (MSP) is critical.
An MSP can implement security measures like anti-phishing technologies, dark web monitoring for compromised credentials, and multi-factor authentication specifically suited to a small business budget.
Maintaining reliable backups is also cheaper for an MSP to manage compared to in-house solutions, and as an added bonus they have the expertise to minimize downtime and business disruption if ransomware does strike. While not immune to attacks when working with an MSP, small and medium businesses can meaningfully improve their cyber resilience by being prepared.
Don't leave your organization's fate to chance! Partner with an MSP for comprehensive cybersecurity support. Get in touch today!
