Business owners may have nightmares that malware or ransomware infected their company’s digital items.
Computers, phones, tablets — even the machines used to manufacture products —must be checked for the subversive code, cleaned and placed back into work. While this happens, it often stops all business operations — no sales, no shipping, no emails and no phone calls, if the phones are connected through an internet provider.
The process is neither short nor cheap. According to data protection experts such as Lodestone and CDK Global, ransomware and cyberattacks have grown increasingly common. Anu Roberts, director of product marketing for CDK Global, said the increase of attacks affects all industries, including RV and automotive dealerships.
“We published an eBook report earlier this year when we wanted to really dig in on what was going on in the dealer community,” Roberts said, “and really understand from a dealers’ perspective how they are making decisions and what their perspective is when it comes to cybersecurity. What we found is that nearly half, about 40%, of our dealer executives felt that malware and ransomware was their greatest cyber search security threat.”
When it comes to dealerships’ plans to handle a potential attack, the numbers worsen. Roberts said less than a quarter of all dealerships invested in security measures in 2020. She said payouts to ransomware attacks rose about 43% since 2019 for an average cost of $30,000-$44,000.
Roberts said the company’s research found a ransomware attack occurring every 11 seconds. She said for many businesses, it is not a matter of if, but when an attack will occur.
Roberts also said 90% of attacks occur because an employee was tricked into allowing the ransomware into company systems.
“So, employee training and employee awareness is really huge,” she said. “A lot of times (ransomware) comes in through a phishing email — hackers are very savvy, and it looks very much like an email that may come from their own dealership.”
Attacks can damage a business’ reputation as a trusted business partner In the case of an attack, owners also have to deal with the downtime needed to fix systems.
“When we think of a dealer environment, you know their ability to be up and servicing clients — that is how they make money and so that is a huge impact to them,” Roberts said. “The average number of days to remediate a ransomware attack incident is about 16 days.”
Cyber threats and the solutions to those threats are an ever-moving target, Roberts said, and a layered approach provides the best protection against hackers or ransomware.
