Cyber extortion is one of those things that we think will never happen, especially to businesses with five or fewer employees.
Why would cyber criminals even care? Simple: small business defenses are so weak that it’s almost comical. Facts: small businesses are four times more likely to be targeted than their larger counterparts.
What is Cyber Extortion?
We all know about ransomware. It can encrypt your data, rendering it unusable unless you pay a ransom within an allotted time.
Yes, that’s cyber extortion. But…
Lately, cyber criminals have gone a step further by threatening to go public with your sensitive business data. A combination of both of these scenarios is called double extortion.
You may think your business is not that sensitive, but trust me, it almost always is.
How big of a deal is this?
The number of cyber extortion scams has risen by 77%. In the first quarter of this year alone, 1,046 businesses fell victim to double extortion. And that’s only the ones who reported it—many more go undocumented.
Cyber extortion attacks in the United States alone have increased by 108%.
The tools that these cyber criminals use to outsmart all of us are getting smarter, especially with the help of AI.
What steps can I take to help prevent cyber extortion?
Of course… there will always be players to try to take you down. But there are non-negotiable things you should be doing right now to help prevent the worst from happening:
- Back up, back up, back up. It’s almost comical how many small businesses know they should be backing up… but don’t. It’s the one thing I hate asking when someone calls us to recover data: “Do you have any backups?”. The best kind of backup is the kind that you keep offline and offsite. If that means throwing a USB stick in your bank’s safe deposit box, then do it. My only advice here is to test those backups every once in a while.
- Keep that software up to date, including Windows updates. I know updating is annoying, but critical security updates are often bundled into some of them. If one little update could stop an attack, it’s worth it.
- Enable Multifactor everryyyyyywhere! I know I repeat this in almost every post… but you would be surprised at the number of cyber incidents that would have been stopped in its tracks if multifactor was enabled.
If you haven’t noticed, the key to all of this is staying proactive. Don’t wait until I’m at your office to ask you if you remembered to make that backup.
Of course. If you need help with any of this or want to take your proactivity to an entirely new level, send me an email, DM, smoke signals, or anything else. I’d love to help by polishing up the essentials.
