SustainedCloudWhat is ransomware?
Ransomware is malware that encrypts your files and systems and demands payment for their release. Modern groups additionally copy your data before encrypting and threaten to publish it (double extortion). Small and mid-sized businesses are primary targets, precisely because attackers assume weaker defenses and backups that were never tested.
How it gets in
The usual doors: phishing mails with credentials or malicious attachments, unpatched systems and firewalls, exposed remote access, and accounts without multi-factor authentication. Attacks are automated and opportunistic; nobody is too small or too boring to be scanned.
Why paying is a bad plan
Payment guarantees nothing: decryption tools are often broken, the stolen data is already gone, and paying marks you as a company that pays. The only reliable way out is the boring one: clean, offline backup copies and a restore procedure that was tested before the incident, not during it.
What actually protects you
Consistent patching closes the doors, network segmentation limits how far an infection spreads, MFA blocks stolen passwords, offline or immutable backups survive the encryption, and monitoring catches the intrusion in the hours before encryption starts, which is when it can still be stopped cheaply.
FAQ
Common questions.
Are small companies really targets?
Yes, disproportionately so. Attacks are automated: scanners look for open doors, not company size. Smaller companies are simply more likely to have one open.
Does cyber insurance cover it?
Increasingly only if you can prove the basics: patching, MFA, segmentation, tested backups. Insurers now audit exactly the measures that would have prevented the incident, so the premium buys little without them.
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