In recent months, OIA have observed significant increases in compromised IT systems across many industry verticals. In the worst cases, client’s data was encrypted with demands for a ransom to be paid in order to unlock it. These attacks are now becoming more prevalent and sophisticated, and no longer rely on a user “clicking” on a link in a suspect email.
In almost all of the recent cases, the attackers got into the system via accounts that had insecure passwords or via accounts that should have been disabled when staff members had left the business. It was not via a suspect email.
The people behind these ransomware attacks are currently asking ransoms of 1-3 bitcoins. Currently 1 bitcoin is worth $1200. The ransom increases rapidly over time.
OIA is recommending that all clients organise for an audit to be done on all accounts on their network. We will work with you to identify accounts that should disabled, removed and have their permissions changed. We will also look at your current password policies and advise of any changes that should occur. This audit will take approximately 2 hours and cost $260 +GST. This is a discount on our normal hourly rate.
We can also double check your current backup systems and polices. One recent client had not been following their policy correctly and have lost a months’ worth of work. OIA recommends daily backup swaps, and if your connection to the internet is capable, offsite backups as some of the new ransomware is targeting the backups on local computers. This will add an hour of time to the audit and increase the total cost to $380 +GST.
Please contact us if you would like to go ahead with the audit of the computer accounts on your network.