After a computer outage of almost a month, Riviera Beach in Florida has decided to give into Ransomware demands and pay $600,000 to – hopefully – get their files back.
No Backups in Riviera Beach?
Does no small US based city have the inclination or budget to have offsite backups?!
It seems not, since just recently it was Baltimore, which has been down since May 7th, and now Riviera Beach since May 29th.
Although the article doesn’t mention backups specifically, it would appear that Riviera Beach has no backup files to go to, otherwise it wouldn’t be paying the ransomware demand.
Cost To Recover
It’s actually costing Riveira Beach more than $600,000. According to the article city council has authorized $941,000 to replace aging and vulnerable computers, plus the $300,000 which is covered by their insurance.
If an outside firm is doing the pre-configuration and onsite setup then there’s additional significant cost there. We’re talking 310 desktop and 90 laptops, more than their staff is likely to be able to handle on short notice.
Baltimore cost $18 million to recover, according to New York Times.
For many small municipalities the justification to keep up to date is difficult.
The outage illustrates the challenges faced by public entities that must operate in the Internet age but that lack the money for the latest systems and the most skilled IT staffers.
www.palmbeachpost.com
Somehow cities will need to re-appropriate funds to make sure they are covered for system outages, including ransomware.
Offsite Backups
What about you? Are you prepared for a ransomware demand?
Do you have a copy of your files offsite where a self-replicating ransomware malware can’t get to?
Do you have any sort of confidence that you could recover from ransomware or some other disaster, and keep going?
Don’t be like Riveira Beach
We see a lot of organizations around the country just being cheap and not making smart choices
Larry Ponemon of the Ponemon Institute
Start looking at cloud based offsite backups.
An offsite backup will save you from ransomware. It’s not complicated to set up and requires no hardware purchase. Costs are generally monthly, so they can easily fit within the budget.
Prepare!
Ransomware has not gone away, and in fact the targets are moving to municipal offices and small government offices.
Non Profits and Charities are also vulnerable.
Be prepared!