The Attack
A worldwide manufacturer of agricultural equipment, AGCO, announced that on May 5, 2022, that the company was victim of a ransomware attack. This incident shut down operations at multiple of its production facilities.
This comes after the FBI recently put the food and agriculture industry on alert, warning that targeted ransomware attacks may be underway against companies that are critical to the food supply chain.
Ransomware
Ransomware, you’ve heard of it by this point, but what do these attacks actually do?
This type of malware encrypts or locks your company’s entire computer systems. Ceasing your business’s ability to operate.
When this occurs. You have two options: isolate the infection while wiping and rebuilding your infrastructure. Which can be a very expensive process. Or you can pay the ransom and get a key to reverse the infection.
Ransomware can interrupt your business operations so badly that the cost to recover manually by restoring your systems from backups is far more costly than just paying the ransom. Which is why many companies choose to pay the ransom.
A great deal of businesses, including those that are operationally mature, choose to ignore the need for a cybersecurity program, making them an easy target for hackers. One way or another, in the end, they do still end up paying.
Reducing Risk
If you have a current IT provider, you may be surprised what a neutral 3rd party security assessment of your business will find. At a minimum, it can give your current provider a hit list of issues to resolve over the next year.
If you’d like to ensure that things aren’t falling through the cracks when it comes to your company’s security posture and would like to discuss an assessment, you can schedule a call below.