What Happens When Hackers Exfiltrate Data From Your Business?

Data breaches are among the most harmful cybersecurity issues any business faces, with the potential for long-term financial and reputational damage. But while there can be many causes of such incidents, from careless employees to an insider threat, the deliberate targeting of firms in order to exfiltrate data as part of ransomware attacks can be the most costly, as well as the hardest to stop.

Attempts to exfiltrate data have become a major part of ransomware threats, as they can enable criminals to repeatedly extort businesses with the threat of exposure of their data. And with ransomware on the rise, it will likely only be a matter of time before they come for your company – assuming you haven’t already been breached.

The rise of data exfiltration tactics has driven much of the growth in ransomware over the past few years. Threat actors have increasingly recognized that this gives them more leverage when extorting businesses and puts extra pressure on organizations to pay. As such, traditional approaches to fighting ransomware may need a rethink.

In the past, a key aim of ransomware was to disrupt businesses by encrypting files or shutting down systems, with the aim of payments being made to get operations up and running again, as was seen in high-profile attacks like the 2017 WannaCry incident. But as firms have become more alert to this threat with defenses such as better backups, these attacks are now less effective.

Therefore, cybercriminals have increasingly turned to data exfiltration as a way of forcing their victims to pay up. In these cases, known as double extortion ransomware attacks, the consequences for not paying can be high, especially in an area where there are tough regulatory penalties for failing to protect personal data in addition to any direct business harm.

In many cases, hackers are counting on firms making risk assessments and determining the cost of paying will be less damaging than ignoring a demand.

Data exfiltration is an increasingly…