Rasomware is a type of malware that prevents your company from accessing it's data until you pay the attacker a ransom to get your data back.It is also possible that your systems will become infected with other forms of malware once a successful attack occurs.

Some messages that might be displayed are:

• "Your computer has been infected with a virus. Click here to resolve the issue."
• "Your computer was used to visit websites with illegal content. To unlock your computer, you must pay a $100 fine."
• "All files on your computer have been encrypted. You must pay this ransom within 72 hours to regain access to your data."

The impacts of a ransomware attack to your company could include the following:

• temporary, and possibly permanent, loss of your company's data
• possibly a complete shutdown of your company's operations
• financial loss as a result of revenue generating operations being shut down
• financial loss associated with remediation efforts
• damaged to your company's reputation

Note that paying the ransom does not guarantee that you'll get your data back. Of the SMBs that suffered a ransomware attack and paid the ransom, 1 in 5 did not get their data back.

Some ransomware statisics to keep in mind:

• the frequency of ransomware attacks increased by 3x in 2017 over 2016: an attack occured every 40 seconds vs. every 2 minutes in 2016.
• mobile ransomware attacks increased of 250% in 2017
• there were 4.3x new ransomware variants in 2017 vs 2016
• 75% of ransomware victims lost access to data for more than 2 days
• 67% of businesses hit by an attack permantly lost all or part of their data
• nearly 75% of targeted businesses don't have the proper security measures in place to avoid infection