Ransomware impacts both big and small organizations across every industry. Attacks are on the rise, and their costs continue to soar. In fact, ransomware attacks increased 41% globally in 2019, with 205,000 businesses having lost access to their data. This year, ransomware is expected to cost organizations up to $20B.

Ransomware is a type of malware that holds network data “hostage.” It works by reading les to penetrate an organization’s IT infrastructure, then encrypts those files and overwrites the original data.

The hacker then demands a fee to decrypt the files so the organization can regain access to their data. Data encryption often occurs over the weekend when this malicious background task is less visible to IT staff.