Preparing to Pay Ransoms in the Event of Ransomware Infection, Companies Create Bitcoin Reserves

According to a new research, business organizations have been found creating Bitcoin reserves to use them for paying cyber-criminals incase ransomware infects their systems and holds the data to blackmail.

The ransomware family of malware, during recent years, encrypted the data on computers of massive number of companies and consumers. Plenty of the victims, including hospitals as well as police departments proceeded to make payments of the ransoms demanded in order that they may regain their data.

Businesses willingly pay up a huge 50,000 pounds (USD72,700) so their PCs get unlocked while simultaneously they get back the intellectual property, distinct for each of them, should ransomware manages to infiltrate their networks.

Businesses doing this are categorized as 36% for enterprises having 250-500 working staff; 57% for enterprises having 501-1,000 employees and 18% for organizations having more than 2,000 employees.

A survey conducted among UK companies, the Citrix poll revealed that not everyday nearly 50% of responding companies created back up of their data. In this context, security specialists recommend doing back-ups that best defend from ransom software and in general dissuade towards paying criminals ransoms. Technologyreview.com posted this June 8, 2016.

Companies stockpiling the digital currency Bitcoin are potentially getting helped when these enterprises don't maintain backups but want to return to the Internet quickly. Usually the companies are without a reason for otherwise keeping a Bitcoin A/C. So if such an account is ready and active it saves time when an enterprise cannot operate in a normal way because of ransomware infection.

Citrix survey also reveals that these companies' pace of safeguarding themselves isn't sufficiently good. According to it, 48% of the respondents do not do backup operations everyday. This endangers them with losing vital data.

Maintaining Bitcoin reserves isn't unique to UK companies, while according to Emin Gun Sirer, a Cornell Professor, his university's authorities have taken the decision to begin an account for coins should they be hit with ransomware assaults.

Meanwhile, exactly what number of enterprises is stockpiling ransom funds even before an attack takes place may be difficult for knowing as they mayn't actually want to advertise it.

» SPAMfighter News - 6/13/2016