With ransomware and other cybersecurity threats on the rise, it has never been more important for every business to have a dependable backup and disaster recovery plan.

For the smallest operations, a simple backup “system” may consist of a couple hard drives stored in a safety deposit box at a bank. Larger operations may decide to invest in quality infrastructure for storing their backups.

In either case, cloud storage can usually provide a practical and cost-efficient supplement.

Let’s take a look at some of the benefits.

Scalability

Cloud storage is scalable: It can flexibly grow or diminish in size according to your needs. This is much harder to accomplish with physical infrastructure. If you buy too little, you’ll be stuck when you run out of capacity. If you buy too much, the surplus will sit around unused.

With cloud-based services, this isn’t a problem. You can use exactly as much storage as you actually need and your bill will reflect that.

Cost-Effectiveness

That scalability can easily translate into savings. Since you only pay for the resources you use, you can avoid expenditures getting out of hand.

You also save money by tapping into cloud providers’ economies of scale. With traditional solutions, you would have to purchase high-grade hardware, set it up, and maintain it over time, all of which have their own costs.

The cloud allows you to pass those costs off to large companies like Amazon and Microsoft, who themselves save money by purchasing large reserves of hardware and provisioning it virtually across many customers.

Protection From On-Site Disasters

A physical on-site backup is vulnerable to threats like natural disasters, fire, robbery, and even arson. That’s why disaster recovery experts emphasize the importance of having multiple copies of your data and storing some of it off-site.

The commonly cited “3-2-1 rule” is a good guideline. It calls for:

• Three copies of your data…
• On two different media…
• With at least one stored off-site.

Although slightly simplistic, the 3-2-1 rule is a great starting point for thinking about how to systematize your backup system. Cloud storage fits perfectly into this scheme as a convenient, affordable off-site option.

Reliability and Redundancy

Backups stored off-site have their own risks. Hard drives fail, and disasters can happen at the remote site, too. If you don’t have regular access to those backups, it’s difficult to verify the safety of the media and the integrity of the data stored on it.

Cloud providers are in a unique position to diminish some of these risks. Amazon’s AWS, for example, claims 99.999999999% durability of data stored on its S3 service. According to their documentation, data objects are “redundantly stored on multiple devices across multiple facilities” in a given region.

Convenience

Compared to physical storage that you personally control, it’s hard to overstate the improved convenience of cloud services. You can potentially access your storage anywhere there is an available Internet connection — something you can’t say about a hard drive stored in a safety deposit box.

The convenience also extends to demands on your staff. You can access that scalable, reliable infrastructure without having to worry about maintenance, patch rollouts, security, etc.

If you could use a little tech help, managed IT providers offer essential services for less technically inclined businesses. They can help you put together a comprehensive backup and disaster recovery plan and take care of its maintenance and monitoring, leaving you to focus on what you know best — your business.

Going into 2021, ransomware remains one of the most dangerous threats in the cybersecurity landscape. To effectively defend themselves, business owners need to know what they’re up against—and small businesses are especially at risk.

What Is Ransomware?

Ransomware is a type of malicious software that encrypts your data until you pay a “ransom” to release it. Most commonly, this involves encrypting whatever files can be accessed and presenting the victim with a message containing information about how to pay. Bitcoin is almost always the payment method of choice due to the ease of laundering it.

Infections spread through a few common attack vectors:

• Insecure Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) software with weak passwords
• Vulnerable, out-of-date software exposed to the Internet
• Phishing emails, where attackers impersonate trusted people and organizations in order to lure victims into downloading software or clicking dangerous links
• Drive-by downloads from malicious websites

Ransomware attacks cause great harm to businesses, costing them an average of $761,106 per attack in 2020 according to Sophos. Smaller companies are especially vulnerable, with a fifth of them going out of business within six months of an attack.

Ransomware Trends

Lately, we’ve seen a trend toward more targeted attack campaigns. In the past, attackers were more likely to take a “spray and pray” approach targeting as many users as possible. Lately, they’ve begun to realize it’s more lucrative to focus on high-value targets and those with sensitive information to protect, such as businesses, healthcare organizations, and government departments.

That means instead of spamming thousands of email addresses at once with generic phishing attempts, they are more likely to employ so-called “spear phishing” methods that involve extensive research on victims to help them more convincingly impersonate trusted colleagues or business partners. And instead of mass scanning the Internet for vulnerable servers, they may choose particular targets for more concerted hacking efforts.

We’ve also seen the rise of so-called “double extortion” ransomware, which threatens to publicly leak data on top of encrypting it.

What if Your Systems Are Infected?

If you’ve been caught with your pants down, the first thing to do is isolate any affected systems from the rest of your network to avoid any further damage. At that point, system administrators or security professionals can assess the scope of the damage.

Can Data Be Decrypted Without Paying?

Occasionally, malware authors make mistakes when implementing the encryption routines in their ransomware, allowing analysts to create decryption tools that can successfully decrypt the hostage files in some cases. But sadly, when attackers effectively cover their bases, there’s no way to retrieve files without paying the ransom (or restoring from backups—see below).

Should You Pay the Ransom?

If all else fails, there’s the question of whether you should just pay up. The “official” answer of many cybersecurity experts and government agencies like the FBI is to recommend against it, pointing out that there’s no guarantee you will actually retrieve your files.

In reality, some organizations may find they have no choice, especially when critical data is at stake or sensitive information cannot afford to leak. Payment results in receiving decryption keys the majority of the time, but the success rate depends on the type of malware and the actors behind the attack.

How to Avoid Being a Victim

There are two sides to mitigating the risk of attacks: reducing the chance of infection with effective defenses and softening the impact when those defenses fail.

Security Best Practices

• Always keep your systems updated and roll out patches as soon as they are released.
• Enable antivirus software on all devices and set it to automatically update.
• Implement strong password policies and multi-factor authentication.
• Observe the principle of least privilege: Users should only have the permissions absolutely needed to perform their intended functions. Regular users should not have high-level administrator privileges.
• Use firewalls to limit access to important systems. Avoid exposing RDP connections to the wider Internet.

Education and Training

Since ransomware infections often originate from phishing attacks, employee awareness is essential. Workers should learn to recognize common features of phishing attacks and be instructed to avoid downloading unknown attachments or clicking links in suspicious e-mails.

Provide educational information about strong passwords, secure e-mail and Internet policies, and safe handling of sensitive data.

Cybersecurity Insurance

With the high monetary costs associated with data breaches and other cyberattacks, many businesses opt for cyber liability insurance, which can help offset financial losses in the event of a breach. Take care to purchase a policy that includes coverage for ransomware, as not all of them do.

The Big One: Backup and Disaster Recovery

A solid backup system is by far the most important piece of the puzzle in the fight against ransomware. At the end of the day, it’s not always possible to ensure that your systems are completely secure. New vulnerabilities crop up every day. An unpatched system could escape your notice, or you could be the victim of an especially well-crafted phishing attack.

This makes it crucial that you have a thorough backup system in place for all your important data, along with an effective disaster recovery solution to ensure that it can be recovered safely and efficiently.

Get Outside Help

Small businesses with fewer resources or less technical know-how can benefit from outside help. Managed service providers specialize in helping companies with their IT needs, including backup and business continuity. Most offer a variety of services that can integrate seamlessly with the systems you already have in place.

Your company’s network is only as secure as its endpoints — all the servers, desktops, laptops, phones, and other devices that connect to your internal system.

While endpoint security has always been important, the pandemic has made it an urgent concern. A tremendous shift toward remote work has led to many workers performing sensitive business operations or handling private data on devices outside your company’s usual security perimeter.

Let’s take a peek into modern endpoint security, and then discuss how managed service providers can benefit companies looking to strengthen their defenses.

Endpoint Security in a Nutshell

While these technologies are rapidly changing, two types of solutions stand out in particular: endpoint protection platforms (EPP) and endpoint detection and response (EDR).

EPP

Endpoint protection platforms provide an integrated suite of tools for securing devices. They usually combine several functionalities normally found in separate products, such as virus scanning, email security, firewalls, and data loss prevention.

Unlike those traditional standalone products, an EPP unites its various services and offers centralized management for organizations over all their endpoints.

The malware protection found in an EPP usually involves traditional signature-based or heuristic matching, as well as modern techniques based on machine learning.

EDR

While EPPs effectively consolidate multiple important functions, endpoint detection and response products go a step further. EDR solutions focus on collecting and analyzing data from endpoints and responding automatically to detected threats if possible.

EDR software collects and monitors data from across your organization and may employ advanced AI and machine learning and models, allowing it to better detect and respond to complex threats such as fileless malware.

Endpoint protection technologies are constantly evolving, so not all of these generalizations apply to every product out there. Many vendors sell unified platforms that integrate features that might belong to separate EPP and EDR solutions from other companies.

Managed Endpoint Security

What if you recognize the importance of endpoint security to your business but lack the resources to set up a solution and maintain it with confidence? You can benefit from the services of an IT provider that offers managed endpoint security.

This type of assistance may come from a managed service provider (MSP), a type of company that helps businesses take care of their IT needs by remotely administering and maintaining their systems. They are especially useful for smaller businesses that want to avoid the hassle and expenditures associated with managing an on-premises IT team, or those that wish to keep their in-house effort streamlined and supplement it with outsourcing.

For more specialized help, you may want to work with a managed security service provider (MSSP), a type of IT provider that focuses on security. MSSPs employ more staff that are specifically trained in cybersecurity and have the expertise to effectively monitor your systems for suspicious activity and proactively defend your business.

Most providers offer an initial call or consultation at no cost — a risk-free way to determine what kind of solution will work best for your needs.