Cyber criminals aren’t taking a break as the weather gets warmer. This past month saw a number of high profile attacks including the City of Baltimore hit with Ransomware. Hackers demanded 13 bitcoin for the key to unlock the files (estimated value of $100,000 USD.) But the ransom was just a small part of the cost. The Atlanta Journal reported that the city has already spent $17+ Million (Yes, 17 MILLION US DOLLARS!) in costs to recover their systems. Even though these dollar values seem high, it still pales in comparison to all the chaos, disruption, social, and economic cost of having nearly all of the city’s services offline for over 3 weeks now and counting… For every big attack like this one, there are hundreds of smaller attacks against small businesses that don’t make it on the news.
Earlier this month I had the honor of being invited back to NYC to speak again at NASDAQ on Cybersecurity to an audience of investors, board members, and business leaders. I was also invited to speak to legal professionals at the New York City Bar Association about the latest on cybercrime, who the perpetrators are, and the legal, economic, and social impacts of modern cyber attacks and what organizations and businesses need to do to stay protected.
The team here at Debian IT is constantly reviewing the threat landscape and implementing the measures needed to keep our clients secure. Stay tuned for some updated standards and best practices that we have in our pipeline that we will be recommending to your organizations to reduce your risk and better prepare to respond in the event that a breach occurs.
