Month: September 2020

Technology

The Risks Involved in Paying After Ransomware Attacks

John Ejiofor / September 25, 2020

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay Ransomware attacks do not necessarily end with the payment despite the huge sum of money involved, there are potential risks attached to the attacks.  A session at Gartner’s Security & Risk Management Summit has revealed that the average cost of a ransomware payment in Q1 2020 was $178,254. While the amount is on the high side, you should know that the downtime cost due to any attack was not taken into consideration. Depending on the size of your business and especially if it’s a midsize company, there are chances that you’ll not be getting all of your encrypted data back after you might have paid for the ransomware attack, the session went on to divulge. Paul Furtado, a senior director and analyst of MSE security at Gartner, was reported to have observed that “What we see is that about 4% of the data is non-recoverable.” What this boils down to is that you have lost both ways.  You have paid the ransom demanded but your data has been compromised and tampered with. It dawns on you that the guys you are dealing with don’t have an iota of good intention for you and your business.  Another thing…

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Technology

How Covid-19 Brought to Focus Risks to Your Data Privacy And Governance

John Ejiofor / September 21, 2020

Image by Hebi B. from Pixabay  There is no doubt that the Covid-19 pandemic and the resultant global lockdown have effectively changed the way businesses operate, which to a large extent, has serious impacts on your data privacy and governance. Out of the blues, organizations and their employees must adapt to a new way of working.  The aftermath of the radical change is that a lot of employees have relocated their offices to the home. While this may be a brand-new innovation to some organizations, a few had before the outbreak, been practicing flexible working for some time.  These organizations were more favorably disposed to adapt to the new world and way of working with relative ease. They were armed with sturdy procedures, practices, and had IT infrastructure in place to cushion the effects of working away from the office.  However, a lot of organizations were left in a sort of quandary, the change was rather impromptu, it was too much, albeit too soon, and they were not prepared for the plunge. As a result, they had to contend with data privacy breaches and the ensuing governance concerns.   Cybersecurity has been a burning issue even before the onset of the pandemic, but the…

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