Honesty is the best policy, according to SSN News Poll results

YARMOUTH, Maine – The numbers are in, and the results are rather brisk and breezy in reader responses from this month’s SSN News Poll.

In discussing the prevalence and explosion of data breaches and ransomware events, Security Systems News asked readers to chime in and give their thoughts on what were the best practices when handling the fallout from malware-related events. Let’s break down your responses below:

What is the best way to reduce or eliminate the possibility and impact of ransomware attacks?

Reader responses were fairly evenly distributed on this reply, with 40% responding that the way to go is with Zero Trust security architecture, reducing attack surfaces, continuous verification, and minimizing impact. An equal 40% put their money on backing up all data and alternative secure storage methods. Only 20% pushed for awareness training, limiting access to data, and addressing personnel weaknesses like social engineering.

Q2 What is the best course of action when affected by a ransomware incident?

Surprisingly most respondents to this question agreed, 80% of those polled, that affected parties should make public acknowledgment and seek help from authorities for incident resolution. 20% of respondents believed those affected should take a hard line approach and refuse to pay the ransom in a stern refusal to blackmailing parties. No respondents opted to choose that affected parties should pay the ransom to retrieve and protective sensitive corporate and customer data, real world data however suggests that paying the ransom is often what companies do to resolve incidents without making it worse.

Q3 Is your organization doing enough to protect against ransomware?

Another 80/20 split with 80% of responses declaring they have complete confidence in their organization’s preventative measures. The remaining 20% admitted that they did not feel confident and that more remained to be done to secure their company/organization against cyber-attacks.

Readers had no comments for this month. Next month we’re polling readers specifically on the security of their personnel access practices.