As more global malware strikes, has your IT guy woken up yet?
Last month it was WannaCrypt, now June sees NotPetya malware bringing down the IT systems of companies large and small with IT encryption attacks. Shipping giant Maersk, a host of Ukrainian national-critical utility companies, global law firm DLA Piper and many more all saw users waking up to unbootable PCs and a ransom demand. Who knows what July will bring to your business?
In the NotPetya case, the ransom doesn’t work, either by design or accident, although some people are still coughing up Bitcoins in the hope of making it go away. The malware’s aim is simply to destroy data and cause havoc around the world. The key factor in this latest attack? Once the fuss over WannaCrypt had died down, most IT departments went back to sleep, assuming they had escaped unharmed. Many ignored any lessons that could be learned and either failed to patch or didn’t patch all systems.
When WannaCrypt hit the NHS in May, the damage was caused due to a lack of “accountability and investment in cyber-security” according to The Chartered Institute for IT. That same claim can be levelled at many businesses, especially smaller companies that are growing fast and are focused on their product and sales, leaving IT security as something to manage as-and-when.
IT security is a key part of any business
That’s why we’re here again, and will likely be banging the same drum next month, talking about cyber security, IT security training and why it is vital to your business. Most small companies lack a security expert and instead leave it to an overburdened “IT person”. This approach remains a recipe for disaster as uncontrolled, untargeted malware races around the Internet.
The volume and rate of IT threats has never been greater and is too much for any one person or even a small department to manage. Automated protection that is updated as new threats arise is vital to any business, along with disaster recovery solutions to help the company and workers survive any attack and continue working. To protect against this current class of threats, IT teams need to remove support for the pair of tools used by the malware. They are Windows Management Instrumentation and SMBv1 – if you don’t know what they are or how to disable them, you really need to be getting in touch with professional help.
Instead of investing heavily on security experts in-house, paying for an outsourced solution can provide the same level of protection, but without taking up space, funding and resources in your office. With a range of antivirus and endpoint protection solutions to suit all business types, we can help protect you against the next big strike, which could appear across your network, in an email or disguised as an update. Get in touch with us now, click here to contact us.
