What are Cyber Threats & how to protect against ransomware attack?
Cyber threats refer to a malicious attack to unlawfully access confidential data, disrupt projects and damage communication causing a serious setback to any business. Cyber attacks hit businesses and private systems every day, but corporations are more vulnerable to cyber-attacks.
The motives behind a cyberattack can be many, and one of the most common is ransom. Cyber criminals hack a system making it useless and demand a ransom to restore its functionality, popularly called as Ransomware. Another motive involves data theft for data of a business including lists of clients, financial data of customers, email addresses, credit card information, login credential, access to IT infrastructure and sensitive personal data.
In recent years post Covid, ransomware attack in UAE have been on the rise. With most businesses have switched to an online mode which has further increased the risk of cyber attacks, as a result, their number has significantly increased, resulting in the collapse of many high and low-profile businesses.
Recently Microsoft exchange server was compromised due to a cyberattack that resulted in several zero-day vulnerabilities, this was called as Proxy Logon, initially launched by the Hafnium hacking group, first recognized in January and patched in March. Yet more groups joined and attacked the unpatched systems, resulting in the confidential information of thousands of organizations being compromised.
An insurance firm CNA was attacked by ransomware and left employees locked out of their systems and blocked from accessing corporate resources, this led to the company's important data being stolen and a financial loss of $40 million
As per Khaleej Times, many companies have paid more than $1.4 million (Dh5.1 million) in ransomware to regain access to their systems after cyberattacks in the past two years and 42 per cent of had to close down operations after the ransomware attack, according to a new report released. Ransomware attack in UAE has been a reason for several small companies closing down their business in which the companies that suffered ransomware attack and paid also did not get their data.