Although billions are spent each year on cybersecurity solutions, as they are each year by firms seeking solutions to the continual threats faced by digital activity, attacks continue to happen and make headlines.
Seeking to prevent ransomware in particular, most companies are making errors in terms of failing to prepare for ‘if and when’ an attack happens. Instead, such firms need to embrace the ‘business continuity’ concept.
This requires enterprises to go beyond prevention and prioritize a strategic recovery plan. In this context, Cloud PCs are serving as a modern “insurance plan” for business recovery, enabling safe access for employees from anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice while IT leaders investigate and mitigate the damage.
Looking into the importance of such preparatory activities for Digital Journal is Amitabh Sinha, co-founder and CEO of Workspot.
According to Sinha all companies must consider themselves vulnerable to attack, noting: “No one is immune to ransomware attacks – even high-profile organizations with massive security budgets have fallen victim. On average, a ransomware attack costs $4.5 million, but that doesn’t account for one of the most financially devastating consequences: complete loss of productivity.”
Sinha states that the current threats mist serve as a reminder that most business continuity plans have a major gap. Sinha defines these as: “The chances that you will be hit by a ransomware attack are increasing. On average it takes one month to investigate and remediate the damage, and companies can’t afford this much downtime if they want to stay competitive.”
Extrapolating this further, Sinha adds: “For a 1000 person organization, average loss in productivity during a month of downtime can equal upwards of $10m. And this does not consider damage to your brand’s reputation.”
Sinha states that instead companies must work out their strategy to a future cyber-incident today, recommending: “What is your recovery plan to keep the business running while you negotiate and rid the organization of malware? New approaches include Cloud PCs, which are imaged and kept up-to-date and are on standby in an isolated environment, serving as a modern “insurance plan” for immediate productivity recovery.”
Expanding on this, Sinha says: “Within an hour of detecting the attack, employees can be back to being productive with their Cloud PCs, safely accessing the data and critical applications they need to keep the business running, continue to serve customers, and mitigate brand reputation damage. Cloud PCs are available for as little as $15 per user per month. Given the scope of the threat landscape today, the cost per user for implementing Cloud PCs for ransomware recovery pales in comparison to the financial risk of 30+ days of lost productivity.”
