Planning on Relaxing During the Holiday? Think Again – Ransomware Attacks May Have You Working Over a Holiday Break!

New data shows a majority of organizations experience ransomware attacks during holiday breaks, disrupting operations and your time away from work!

Everyone needs an ability to separate out work and life. The pandemic has blurred those lines for many IT and security professionals, and – from the looks of new data from Cyberreason – the upcoming holidays are going to be no exception.

In their Ransomware Attackers Don’t Take Holidays report, Cyberreason highlight some valid concerns around attacks taking place during weekends and holidays. According to the report:

• 86% of IT/Security professionals have missed celebrating a holiday or weekend activity because of a ransomware attack
• 60% of holiday weekend attacks have resulted in attackers taking longer periods to assess the scope of the attack
• 89% of organizations continue to be concerned about weekend and holiday-timed ransomware attacks

And, despite the material amount of awareness around these kinds of attacks, the report goes on to provide some insight into whether organizations are ready or not:

• 36% of organizations that had experienced a ransomware attack say they had no specific response plan in place
• 24% of organizations say they still have no response plan ready, despite having already suffered an attack

One last interesting piece of data is that nearly half (49%) of organizations believe the attack they experienced was successful because they didn’t have the right security solutions in place. I firmly believe that to be the case; organizations need a layered security approach that includes Security Awareness Training to ensure users are playing a role in stopping ransomware attacks initiated by malicious email or web content.