How Much is a Typical Ransomware Ransom?
Since each ransom attack varies so much, it is tough to answer what exactly the typical ransomware payment is. It is also difficult to pinpoint the exact number of ransomware gangs that are active, but it is certainly a large amount.
Top 5 Reasons to Buy Cyber Breach Insurance
In August of 2018, I shared an opinion about the value of cyber breach insurance. I was not very fond of it, at least not at the time given the typical insurance company terms vs. the typical cost of the risk at the time. Here is that opinion – Should I buy cyber insurance?
[Podcast] Steps to Minimize Ransomware Risk
Last month, Alvaka COO and CISO, Kevin McDonald, sat down with the Miles Jobgen of the CompTIA Biz Tech Podcast to share his experiences with rescuing and restoring clients from ransomware—the most dangerous threat to IT solution providers today. He [...]
Corporate Survival – The Ultimate Cybersecurity ROI
The following is a guest blog written by Ciaran Foley of XeneX. Ciaran discusses the current and future state of cybersecurity, including the big business of enterprise-scale ransomware operations. As a Corporate Executive or Board Member, you may never [...]
Top Backup and Disaster Recovery Challenges
Alvaka Networks President and CEO, Oli Thordarson, recently answered some questions posed by John Edwards for a story he is writing for TechTarget. Oli’s personal thoughts and experiences are based on over 35 years working in the IT profession—and alongside [...]
Dharma Ransomware-as-a-Service Places SMBs at Significant Risk
In the cat-and-mouse world of ransomware and cybersecurity, with businesses and governments needing to place two steps between them and cybercriminals, comes a new obstacle – Ransomware-as-a-Service. Dharma, a cybercriminal firm, provides, “one of the most popular offerings around, saying [...]
Smoke testing is a term used to describe the testing process for servers after patches are applied. 
Estimating an average time for patching servers and PCs can be a bit tricky. It can vary from one month to the next, depending upon the number and complexity of the patches released by your software vendors. You must consider all versions of operating systems and have a complete inventory of all your application software to do this job correctly. Our experience has shown that manual patching of systems takes on average of about 1.5 hours each.
This is a basic cost calculator for you to compute your typical monthly cost for patching your servers, PCs, laptops, tablets and associated application software. It also forms the basis for you to begin calculating your Return on Investment for software patching, or for comparison with alternatives to the manual process of patching operating systems and application software—such as Patch Management as a Service, also known as Vulnerability Management as a Service.
