What To Learn From The Baltimore Ransomware Attack

Introduction

An article in Dark Reading reports that on May 7, 2019, the city of Baltimore suffered a ransomware attack disabling multiple services city-wide. The hackers demanded $76,000 in bitcoin to restore Baltimore’s data. City officials refused to pay and started their recovery operations.

By July 2019, Baltimore spent over $5 million and expects to pay $10+ million on recovery efforts in total. The city estimates it will lose $8.2 million in revenues for the year due to the attack.

The mistake that cost Baltimore millions

The article pointed out that, despite all of the hype around ransomware and its effects, Baltimore had no backup or data recovery systems in place! Critical data only existed on individual workstations.

But, is Baltimore unique? Unfortunately, no. Many organizations have inadequate backup systems or the wrong recovery solutions for their needs.

Many organizations are reluctant to spend money on better backup solutions. However, as in most cases, the money spent in recovery often far exceeds the cost of a proper IT Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity solution.

Data is the lifeblood of business, protect it

Without data, you cannot operate. Statistics show that 60% of businesses that lose their data will close within six (6) months, some due to having no backups at all, like Baltimore; others because of inadequate backup systems.

If your business cannot function for extended periods without access to your data, then a data only backup system is a bad choice since restorations can take days to weeks.

As a business, you must change your mindset. Never be satisfied with merely backing up data. Instead, strive for Business Continuity. Business Continuity describes a complete solution for Backup and Disaster Recovery, protecting data on-premises in physical and virtual servers as well as in the cloud.

Solutions that use a combination of onsite and cloud systems to backup data are called Hybrid-cloud Solutions.

A Hybrid-cloud Business Continuity Solution provides complete protection

The Hybrid-cloud provides:

• Instant onsite failover to a local device that virtually eliminates downtime.
• Simultaneous Cloud Continuity for maximum protection in case your premises are damaged.
• Image capture for fast server and workstation restores.
• Bare Metal Restore (BMR) capability so images can be restored onto different hardware.
• A Total Time To Recovery that can be measured in minutes to a few hours.

Conclusion

Every organization needs to take data protection seriously. Having the right backup solution is vital to your company’s survival. Data only backup protects your data but cannot ensure a fast recovery.

Don’t be caught off guard. Invest in a Hybrid-cloud Business Continuity Solution.

XSolutions is an Elite Partner of Datto, the world leader in Hybrid-Cloud Business Continuity solutions whose systems protect 460+ Petabytes of data with over 1400+ employees and 9 offices around the globe. Call (845) 362-9675 and let us introduce you to the ultimate defense against data loss—whatever the cause. Backup & Disaster Recovery | Business Continuity | Data Risk Assessment