The U.S. government is warning hospitals and healthcare providers to take precautions to protect their networks from imminent ransomware threats. The joint cybersecurity advisory focuses on a recent increase of the utilization of Ryuk ransomware. 

According to the advisory from the FBI, CISA and HHS, Ryuk ransomware first appeared in August 2018. However, the past 30 days have seen multiple healthcare systems report Ryuk attacks and infections, resulting in millions of dollars in ransom demands.

As cyber criminals leverage more intelligent methods of attack, the need for protection becomes more crucial. An obvious starting point to protecting against ransomware is ensuring you have suitable anti-virus and security software that is kept up to date. As seen in many cases, however, zero-day malware is becoming more common so anti-virus software does not necessarily provide any guarantee of protection against this threat.

The number of ransomware attacks is steadily on the rise, increasing 300 percent year over year. Have you considered how ransomware would affect your company? What if you didn’t have to? With the right disaster recovery protection solution, you can recover from ransomware attacks in minutes and reduce the risk of data loss to just seconds. But first, let’s gain a better understanding of what ransomware is, and why it’s a growing threat.