CIO OPINION
Akin to taking martial arts classes to help defend yourselves from attacks , protecting an organisation starts with investing both time and money . as easy as it sounds . And it is important to remember that the cost of cyber-insurance is increasing , and issues such as ransomware have been excluded from the coverage criteria of many policies .
And important to understand is that even if you end up paying a ransom , it does not guarantee that your data will be returned . This happened to 33 % of organisations that were unable to recover their data even after having paid the ransom , according to the Veeam Ransomware Trends Report 2023 .
In the war against ransomware , a good defence is a strong offence , and companies that counteract with initiative-taking measures are less likely to get hacked or breached . Because if cybercriminals cannot steal data , they cannot get paid .
Whilst paying a ransom – be it direct or via insurance – might seem like a quick fix to end the crisis , but it is not
The question remains , how do organisations overcome this conundrum ?
The answer : fortify your business to be as resilient as possible even before a cyber-attack occurs . You do not want your organisation to be part of the picture that has seen South Africa ranking sixth in the world in terms of cybercrime density and costing the country R2.2 billion every year . p
40 INTELLIGENTCIO AFRICA www . intelligentcio . com