Dozens Of Dutch Companies Pay Ransomware

In the first months of this year are already at least 28 Dutch companies have become the victim of crypto ransomware, which were encrypted terabytes of data on NAS systems. 25 companies finally decided the requested ransom, ranging from 300 euros to 1,000 euros to pay. According to the company are particularly SMEs who were victims of crypto ransomware.

Unlike many consumer which files are encrypted on computers, it's all the affected companies to NAS systems, including Synology, Qnap and Buffalo. These systems are used for the storage of large amounts of data. The ransomware encrypts would have between 1 and 20 terabytes of data to the entrepreneurs affected. Who subsequently received a warning that make decrypting the data is to be paid.

How the companies were infected, according to the recovery company difficult to determine. It could have happened through infected emails, but also visiting infected websites or downloading infected files is not excluded. In the case of Synology NAS systems were last year's target of ransomware that attackers were able to gain access to the system via an old leak.

Effects

The effects of the infections differed for each firm. There were various administrative agencies in which customer files and office documents were encrypted and the staff could not therefore continue to work on current orders. Also, there would have been graphic designers who, by all stood their data on the NAS server, threatened not to meet their deadline. The recovery company has also announced that several photographers were victims of the ransomware, with terabytes of footage of photo shoots and weddings were encrypted.

Most organizations who were the victims did not have enough to backups. "As a result, they were forced to pay the hackers the requested number of bitcoins. There have also organizations reported that there are sufficient backups were present and it was not necessary to pay the hackers for their data. The loss in these cases minimal, "says CEO Hamed Ghilav. In total, 25 companies agreed to pay the ransom and get their files back also. The three remaining companies had recent backups.

Still not Ghilav advises companies in principle to pay the ransom. "So the hackers get their way." The advice is therefore to make good backups. All companies that were affected and had paid the ransom in common that they did not have recent backups. According Ghilav stood still on the "to-do list" of entrepreneurs. "Here is our opinion too often gambled on '' that will not happen to us. '' Companies should really better go back up to in such cases to run on as little damage as possible."