Three years after the hack at Maastricht University, it turns out the victim had found a very daring way to make money. Remember it? Two tonnes paid in crypto after a ransomware attack. The police and the prosecution recovered part of the ransom money, which in the meantime had increased in value by three tonnes. Bingo! However, there are less risky ways to ensure your business continuity.
By the beasts
Of course, the chances of you and us being as lucky as the aforementioned university are very slim. The same unfortunately applies to the chances of keeping cybercrime out forever, even with best-of-breed technology. Unfortunately, hackers are too smart and ruthless for that. Sooner or later it will be everyone’s turn, as even educational institutions and a zoo like Artis will not be spared. That is literally and figuratively by the beasts. So instead of focusing one-sidedly on all kinds of technical solutions and having the illusion that it won’t happen to your organization, you should actually think carefully about the potential impact of a hack.
Time and continuity
You will then quickly come to the conclusion that the time and continuity factor is crucial. After all, time is precious and you especially notice this when you cannot continue for a while due to a hack or downtime. This is precisely the reason why the university mentioned did pay a ransom. So security tools and related services, including those of Cortexia, are mainly aimed at saving time. In our view, this is best done with as many tools as possible, even if they are not all top of the bill. After all, you also keep a burglar out longer with four mediocre locks than with one great lock.
Be prepared for a hack
Exactly which tools it will be, you can confidently leave to an expert. Your main task should be to prepare for a future hack. Draw up a plan of action and assign tasks and responsibilities. Everything should be aimed at ensuring that data is restored and applications are back up and running as soon as possible. Describe several scenarios here, including the worst-case scenario. In addition, good backups and backup procedures should not be missing. Stick to the 3-2-1-1-0 rule as much as possible. That is, there should be at least three copies of important data, on at least two different types of media, with at least one off-site copy and one offline. And with 0 errors.
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
And if you don’t have a Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) system yet, at least get informed about it. After all, modern BCDR products can run applications from backup instances of virtual servers. This can often also be done from the cloud as Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS).
Do you want to keep cybercriminals out for as long as possible and want to know how we do that for customers? Then contact us at info@cortexia.nl or + 31 8 7875 0528. We will come straight away with specific advice to get your organisation up and running again in no time when things unexpectedly go wrong.
