You have a top-flight antivirus solution deployed and managed on your system. Your hardware firewall is automatically updated and continuously monitored by a great security team. You’ve blocked access to all known malicious and questionable web sites. Your email and web surfing is filtered by the best service money can buy. You just paid $1,000 worth of Bitcoin to somebody you’ve never met in a country you’ve never visited.

Which one of these statements doesn’t belong? Believe it or not, they all fit together perfectly. Ransomware is a real threat. Just ask the FBI, if you don’t believe it. The only way to truly protect yourself against this is to do all of the above plus keep a current backup of all of your important data. When you’re targeted by ransomware, even your shadow copies and network drives are at risk.

Modern backup solutions are very good at deduplication and on-line backups. This means you can make backups of important data hourly and only utilize slightly more space than a daily backup while experiencing zero downtime to run the jobs. The more frequent you schedule them, the less leverage you give to ransomware. There is no fool-proof method to prevent ransomware from getting onto a networked machine, but the more recent your backup, the lower your risk of losing data or money.

Follow safe computing practices. Make frequent backups. Save your money.

-Atris Technology, Inc. is an SSAE 16 examined service provider and software development company. Atris provides security, management, hosting, software, and consulting to companies who run highly regulated networks and systems. Contact us for more information.