What a 400% increase in ransomware means for your DR plans

The stats are out. 2016 has seen a whopping 400% increase in ransomware breaches and cyberattacks are expected to further escalate in 2017.

This means that if your company doesn’t have a disaster recovery plan in place, then now is the time. If you do already have one, test it out… repeatedly.There are many stories of the catastrophic impact of cyber-attacks that prove ruinous to large and small companies alike.

What is often overlooked, however, is the impact of even a more minor and arguably more ‘common place’ attacks.The average ransomware attack on an SME can take only minutes to identify but weeks to rectify. That’s a whopping approximate cost of £26,500 p/week in lost productivity for a company of 55 people at an average salary of £25,000.

Cyber-attacks are real and they are growing in number – now is not the time to bury your head in the sand!In light of the increased frequency and nature of these attacks, your basic disaster recovery plan should incorporate the following 3 points to best minimise the impact of a cyberattack:

• Defined recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO) so you know exactly how long it will take to get your business back up and running

• Account for regular back-up testing to ensure recoverability of your data

• Establish employee education programmes for both cyber safety and incident response best practice

Your disaster recovery plan needs to be tailored to your company to better protect the critical data pertinent to your specific business and in turn facilitate continuity of business operations in the face of disaster.