Everyday there is a story in the IT Industry news about a company that was hit with a ransomware virus and all their data was encrypted. Because, some of them didn’t have consistent backups, they had to pay the ransom to get their data back.

One thing we at eRemoteHelp cannot stress enough is the importance of backing up your personal and/or company data. We believe that any data that is important enough to be backed up, should be kept in at least two locations. Anything can happen in the blink of an eye; hard drive failure, phone crash, virus infection or ransomware encrypting all your files, or even a fire in your office building.

Here are some facts about ransomware:

1. Ransomware Costs Forecast to Reach $20 Billion by 2021

The cost of ransomware is on the rise, and Cybersecurity Ventures estimates that the global costs will reach $20 billion by next year. This is an increase from their estimated damages of $11.5 billion in 2019 and $8 billion in 2018.

2. The Average Ransom Payment Amount Increased by 104% in Q4 2019

In the last quarter of 2019, the average ransomware demand amount increased to $84,116, according to Coveware. The company reports that the highest-reported ransom payment was $780,000 for a large enterprise.

3. More than 68,000 New Ransomware Trojans for Mobile Detected Last Year

Kaspersky Labs reports that their mobile products and technologies detected 68,362 new mobile installation packages for ransomware trojans in 2019. This is an increase (8,186) over the previous year. However, the generation of new ransomware packages started out heavy in Q1 2019 (27,928) but decreased from quarter to quarter as the year progressed.

Now, more than ever, backups should be a requirement for your business and personal files. If you are interested in learning how backups can benefit you personally or your company, please give us a call at 888-699-3949 or 308-672-0222. You can also email us at info@eRemoteHelp.com, and we can discuss options for backing up your business files, personal files and data on your phone.

Have a great week!