Although a ransom was not paid, city officials in Woodstock, ON have disclosed that they have spent $667,627 to resolve a ransomware attack from earlier this year. The breakdown of costs is as follows: $560,000 on Outsourced Cyber Security Assistance, $55,000 on Overtime for IT Staff and $31,000 on IT Infrastructure Upgrades. The city is stating that no personal data was compromised during the breach but as we have seen, the length of time it took for remediation and recovery have surely taken a financial toll.
This attack further underscores the point that organizations cannot simply take an approach of, “worrying about it when it happens.” Ransomware remediation and continuity planning can take time and resources to implement but these costs are nothing compared to the skyrocketing figures that organizations are having to face during an incident and the continual costs that cascade after an attack occurs.