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What MSPs, VARs Should Know About Ransomware

Data wipe What MSPs, VARs Should Know About Ransomware Downtime translated into big concerns, such as data recovery costs, reduced customer satisfaction, missed deadlines and lost sales. Challenges Ahead 43% of IT consultants have had customers hit by ransomware, while 48% saw an increase in ransomware-related support inquiries. Additionally, 59% expect the number of attacks […]

Written By: Gina Roos

Mar 23, 2016

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Data wipe

What MSPs, VARs Should Know About Ransomware

Downtime translated into big concerns, such as data recovery costs, reduced customer satisfaction, missed deadlines and lost sales.

Challenges Ahead

43% of IT consultants have had customers hit by ransomware, while 48% saw an increase in ransomware-related support inquiries. Additionally, 59% expect the number of attacks to increase in 2016.

Who’s At Risk?

89% of the businesses victimized by ransomware had 10 employees or more, while 60% had more than 100 employees. Three-fourths (75%) of attacks affected three or more people, and 47% impacted at least 20 people.

Top Security Concerns

65% of IT consultants said hacking was their top security concern, followed by privacy breaches (64%), spyware (54%) and credit card breaches (53%). Only 24% ranked ransomware as a concern.

Growing Alarm

33% of IT consultants were very or extremely concerned about ransomware attacks on their customers in 2015; 37% said they were extremely or very concerned in 2016.

MSP Fears

23% of MSPs said they are extremely concerned about ransomware, compared with only 10% of IT consultants and 0% of VARs. The percentages for providers who are very concerned include MSPs (20%), IT consultants (25%) and VARs (43%).

Loss of Data Access

Ransomware attacks resulted in a loss of data access for three days, on average, with most businesses losing one day of access.

Ransom Payments

75% of IT consultants said their affected customers did not pay the ransom.

Data Recovery Rates

For those customers who paid, 71% of them got their files restored. On average, customers paid $250 per user for the ransom.

Wipe and Restore

83% of IT consultants spent three days or less wiping and restoring the impacted computers, with 13% spending less than eight hours doing so. However, 7% spent more than one week on the task.

Quick Restoration

MSPs were the fastest at completing the wipe-and-restore process, taking 45 hours, compared with IT consultants, who spent 53 hours, and VARs, who spent 72 hours.

Biggest Business Impacts

32% said significant data recovery costs were the top business impact of a ransomware attack, followed by traumatized employees (28%), reduced customer satisfaction (25%), missed business deadlines (25%) and lost sales (25%).

Costs of Data Recovery

55% of IT experts billed their customers for time spent helping them recover their data, but 39% said they did not bill for the time.

Ready for Action

94% of IT consultants who were extremely concerned about ransomware knew how to protect their customers, compared with 80% for everyone else.

Biggest Losers

Industries with the most to lose from ransomware include accounting/finance/banking (64%), information technology (46%), government (45%) and e-commerce (36%), according to IT consultants.

What MSPs, VARs Should Know About Ransomware

Gina Roos

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