Data Recovery Digest

We saw many different attacks in 2017. Some of them even came with funny or clever names, like WannaCry or BadRabbit. Others, like Locky, LeakerLocker and WYSIWYE (What You See Is What You Encrypt), provide hints to their nefarious purposes within their own names. Then there are others, like Reyptson, Cerber and Osiris – which are seemingly named at random.

Regardless of its origin, all of these programs are equally devastating to companies and individuals who fail to backup their data on a regular basis. Even then, storing your data locally and on your primary network might not be good enough – it could also become infected.

As if the recent trend of ransomware wasn't enough to have the average computer user shaking in their boots, a troubling new report suggests that victims who give in to the demands and pay the ransom only have a 50% chance of recovering their data. On the other hand, almost 90% of victims who refuse to pay the ransom were able to recover their data, either through the use of backups, third-party services or specialty software.

Diving into the Report

Released by the CyberEdge Group and entitled the 2018 Cyberthreat Defense Report – the report offers comprehensive insight and firsthand input from well over 1,000 IT security experts located in 17 different countries and nearly 20 different industries.

The report reads, in part: "It’s like flipping a coin twice consecutively – once to determine if your organization will be victimized by ransomware, and then, if you decide to pay the ransom, flip it again to determine if you’ll get your data back."

Other statistics and trends in the report focused on some of the positive aspects of IT security, including:

- Increases in IT security spending. Almost 80% of survey participants indicated a rise in their company's IT security budget.

- Declines in overall network breaches. Although approximately 77% of networks experienced some sort of breach last year, this actually represents the first decline in five years.

Overall, IT experts are making progress. Breakthroughs like cloud computing, the Internet of Things and even next-gen mobile computing all represent significant and new challenges for IT security experts – in many ways, it's a never-ending job.

At the very same time, today's hackers are constantly working on the newest hacks, bugs and backdoors to circumvent security and cause strife for consumers and IT professionals alike. The CyberEdge 2018 Cyberthreat Defense Report continues on to highlight malware, ransomware and spear-phishing as the topmost threats and application containers, mobile devices and cloud infrastructure as the most common targets for hackers – so IT security experts will certainly focus their efforts on these areas in the future.

Finding out More

To find out more information about the CyberEdge Group, including details on any of their latest industry research or marketing initiatives, please visit their official LinkedIn profile at {{https://www.linkedin.com/company/cyberedge-group-llc|linkedin.com/company/cyberedge-group-llc}}. To access and download the report, please visit {{https://cyber-edge.com/CDR/|cyber-edge.com/CDR}}.