A Russian cybersecurity firm has warned Filipino firms against the further proliferation of ransomware attacks as more “cyberhackers” look for opportunities to receive a huge payout at a time when the global economy is at an uneven pace of recovery from the pandemic.
Chris Connell, managing director for Asia-Pacific and vice president for global sales network at Kaspersky, said that companies are faced with greater risks of ransomware attacks amid the accelerated use of digital platforms.
“They (cyberhackers) usually attack by finding a loophole to get into the infrastructure,” he told the Inquirer in a recent interview in Thailand. This was usually through suspicious emails sent to company employees, he explained.
Ransomware is a form of cyberattack that holds an entity’s data or system hostage until a ransom is paid.
In a recent study by Kaspersky, it was found that two in three businesses in Southeast Asia had been victimized by ransomware attacks.
Connell said these cybercriminals target system vulnerabilities of companies that have a “very big reputation” to protect.
The Kaspersky official said some of these companies just pay the attackers to keep the issue under wraps. If the public gets wind of the attack, he said it might turn away the companies’ existing customers.
Others, meanwhile, just want to get it over with so they shell out a huge amount to settle the ransom, he added.
“Our policy is to recommend to them: do not pay the ransom. Once you pay, there could be a next time,” Connell stressed.
Paying off the cybercriminals all the time would never be “sustainable,” financially speaking, he explained.
The companies, as such, are advised to ensure they have addressed potential gaps in their cybersecurity and they are always updated with the new ways hackers may launch their attacks.Vitaly Kamluk, director of Kaspersky’s global research and analysis team, said that companies have become more mature in terms of cybersecurity given the increased spending on information technology systems.
“With many damaging attacks, we see that more organizations are looking into securing their data and systems and moving towards a proactive rather than defensive approach to cybersecurity,” he told the reporters in an emailed statement.
Header photo: Dan Nelson on Unsplash
