{"id":58231,"date":"2017-11-02T11:16:10","date_gmt":"2017-11-02T16:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/blog\/?p=58231"},"modified":"2017-11-02T12:17:30","modified_gmt":"2017-11-02T17:17:30","slug":"employees-pay-ransom-demands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/blog\/employees-pay-ransom-demands\/","title":{"rendered":"96% of Employees and Businesses Paid Ransom Demands"},"content":{"rendered":"

Majority of Employees Personally Pay Ransom Demands<\/h3>\n

In a survey <\/a>completed by Intermedia, it was found that a vast majority of employees paid up after being hit with ransomware.\u00a0 Ransomware is a malicious software that infiltrates devices, servers, and networks which encrypts data.\u00a0 After encryption a ransom note will be displayed, stating in order to retrieve the locked files, users must pay a sum of money.\u00a0 The survey reports after being infected, 59% of employees paid the ransom demands through their personal account.\u00a0 Another 37% reported their employers paid the demands to unlock the data.\u00a0 The remaining 4% reported no ransom was paid.<\/p>\n

What employees and employers may not be aware of, is the risk of paying the demand.\u00a0 Upon sending the payment to the hackers, there is no guarantee the files will be unlocked.\u00a0 By paying the ransom, the employee and\/or company also puts a target on their backs for additional ransomware infections, because the cyber criminals know they will likely pay again.<\/p>\n

Instead of paying the ransom demands it is encouraged users retrieve their files via backups.\u00a0 Although, backups are not always a golden ticket for remediation.\u00a0 Often times, backup files are outdated or corrupted.\u00a0 If backup systems are up-to-date, companies often will not use them to remediate their systems due to the amount of time and man-power it will take to restore the systems.<\/p>\n

An alternative approach is to focus on prevention, instead of remediation.\u00a0 By using an application whitelist approach<\/a>, ransomware attacks can be significantly minimized, if not completely avoided.\u00a0 A default-deny approach, such as application whitelisting<\/a>, only allows known trusted programs to execute.<\/p>\n

To access the full survey, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Majority of Employees Personally Pay Ransom Demands In a survey completed by Intermedia, it was found that a vast majority of employees paid up after being hit with ransomware.\u00a0 Ransomware is a malicious software that infiltrates devices, servers, and networks which encrypts data.\u00a0 After encryption a ransom note will be displayed, stating in order to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":55110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4949,5000,5090],"tags":[5241,4363,5074],"class_list":["post-58231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ransomware","category-ransomwarewar","category-slider","tag-ransom-demands","tag-ransomware","tag-whitelist"],"yoast_head":"\n96% of Employees and Businesses Paid Ransom Demands<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A majority of employees admitted to paying ransom demands from their personal accounts. 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