Preventing and responding to ransomware

Ransomware attacks on public institutions are on the rise. In fact, in 2019, many state and local governments, as well as hospitals, were the targets of cybercrime. The result can be a lack of productivity, financial issues and other operational deficiencies and crises for these organizations.

The fact that these dangerous cyberattacks, and their consequences have been made increasingly public has increased the sensitivity of data security – not only among the population, but especially at the targeted government institutions. A 2019 cybersecurity study found that even if disclosure of such attacks is required by law, some institutions have not reported violations. This suggests that the actual number of attacks is higher than previously thought.

It is high time to act. But many are struggling to implement effective protection measures in order to defend themselves. The reason: they have too little information about the faster and more persistent attack scenarios of hackers.

As is so often the case, the best form of protection is prevention. This means taking appropriate protective measures to stop a cyberattack before it even has a chance to infect computers. For example, government organizations that handle sensitive information should have powerful spam and high-quality firewalls to protect against malicious IP addresses. More security can also be ensured by using up-to-date operating systems and introducing standard processes for attaching operating system patches and updates, as well as recognized anti-virus programs. But beware, it is not enough to simply install and implement these protection measures. Instead, the measures must be continuously tested and optimized to ensure that the data remains protected.

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