According to research from Google, ransomware is here to stay. It has become incredibly lucrative – with Google revealing at BlackHat that cyber thieves have taken at least $25 million (£19 million) from ransomware – and more variants are starting to emerge. This figure shows ransomware is now a huge business that isn’t going anywhere, so it’s vital that businesses figure out an immediate solution to the problem.

“It’s become a very, very profitable market and is here to stay,” said Elie Bursztein from Google who, with colleagues Kylie McRoberts and Luca Invernizzi, carried out the research.

>See also: Held hostage: the rise of ransomware 

Businesses must begin building backups into their security solutions to resist this increasing rise of ransomware, according to Veeam.

Massimo Merlo, VP of EMEA Enterprise and Regional ‎VP of UK & Ireland at Veeam, believes the answer is to include backup within security solutions across the business to eliminate the possibility of attack or data corruption.

“If ransomware isn’t going away – and it doesn’t seem to be – it’s time for businesses to take action. To mitigate the risk of ransomware, technology is critical. Data backup with air-gapped protection – the process of isolating a backup from the live network in order to conduct a data restore – is a solution that seems to have been overlooked in the fight against ransomware thus far. The very first recommendation that is provided by the US FBI in its guide, ‘Ransomware Prevention and Response for CEOs’, is to ensure that critical data is backed up and stored offline, and that restoration of this data is regularly validated.”

>See also: The real damage of a ransomware attack is felt in the downtime

“You shouldn’t strive to make yourself hack-proof. The speed at which attacks are changing means this is virtually impossible. Rather, you should make your security as robust as possible and ensure your backups are not solely located on your network, to eliminate the possibility of attack or corruption.”

The ransomware crisis, as seen in the last few months is only getting worse. “It’s no longer a game reserved for tech-savvy criminals,” Bursztein said. “It’s for almost anyone.”

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