In 2019 alone, ransomware is reported to have caused up to $170 billion of damage to organizations across the globe. This year, the extent of the damage done is likely to be far greater. In their Mid-Year Threat Landscape Report for 2020, BitDefender reported a 700% increase in the number of attempted ransomware attacks so far compared to the same period in 2019. The recent dramatic rise in attacks also ties into a longer-term trend. As cybercriminals target valuable customer and employee data directly, the potential for a ransomware related data breach is increasingly high.
Faced with this ransomware onslaught, organizations of all kinds need to rethink how they protect themselves. Part of that rethink means merging the need to provide better privacy protection for their employees with the necessity to protect themselves from the consequences of a ransomware attack exposing both customer and employee data. With federal agencies signaling the possibility of fines for complying with ransomware demands and the liability from exposing personally identifiable data likely to rise significantly, not doing so will soon be too costly to consider.