#WeekendWisdom 083 HSE Ransomware Update

Welcome to #WeekendWisdom number 83. This week we’re going to talk about HSE Ransomware Update.

This is a quick HSE Ransomware Update

At the time of recording, we’re just one day shy of it being 5 weeks since we learned of the devastating impact of the HSE ransomware incident. To all of those experts that were on TV, Radio, Newspapers and other online media who were saying “Just pay the ransom and we’ll get back up and running.”

Here we are 5 weeks later and they’re still not back up and running. That’s even with them getting the key to decrypt the data within 3 days of the incident. So even having the key, it’s taking them so much longer to recover.

Why is it taking so long?

This is because the HSE has huge, vast quantities of data that needs to be checked and made sure the integrity is perfect. Because you don’t want your health records to be damaged in anyway, do you? I certainly wouldn’t. So they have to be so very careful with getting the data back.

What hope does a small business owner have?

For smaller businesses, which is where more my focus would be, things can be a lot simpler. It can be a lot easier for you to be able to recover from these type of ransomware incidents, if you put in place a decent backup strategy. I am happy to talk to any small business owner that needs any kind of assistance in making sure they have good backups in place.

So that’s it for this week. Lets be careful out there and we’ll talk to you again next week.