Is Your Business a Ransomware Target?

Sophos State of Ransomware research consistently identifies several factors: industry (healthcare, financial services, government, manufacturing rank higher in published targeting data), company size (above-the-radar size attracts ransomware actors), observable security gaps (no MFA, weak backups, exposed remote access), and lack of an incident-response plan. Higher-risk profiles do not guarantee an attack; lower-risk profiles do not guarantee immunity.

No. This is an educational risk-profile assessment, not a prediction. Ransomware risk depends on operational security controls and observable target patterns relative to industry baselines. The output describes the gap between current controls and baseline best practices; it does not state that an attack will happen, is likely, or is imminent.

Microsoft, Google, CISA, and major MSP community guidance consistently identify a core set: enforce MFA across every employee on every application, maintain off-site immutable backups with quarterly tested restores, run quarterly security-awareness training with simulated phishing, deploy business-grade EDR (not free antivirus), and document a basic incident-response plan with a named lead. These five address the most common ransomware-success paths.

Cyber insurance covers financial impact (ransom payments where legal, recovery costs, business-interruption), but it does not prevent attacks and increasingly requires specific security controls in place as a precondition for coverage. Insurers commonly require MFA, EDR, backup quality, and incident-response capability before issuing or renewing policies; insurance is part of the strategy, not a substitute for it.

Yes. The nine-factor risk profile changes meaningfully when you deploy MFA, improve backup immutability, complete a security-awareness training cycle, or upgrade from legacy antivirus to EDR. Sophos research shows the average dwell time before ransomware detection is 5 days, meaning control improvements have real-time risk impact. Retaking quarterly after a security initiative gives you a before-and-after read on whether the controls closed the specific gaps the original assessment surfaced, which is more useful than a one-time snapshot.

Industry baseline expectations include MFA enforced across every employee and every business application, centralized patching with 7-day critical-patch SLAs, business-grade endpoint protection (EDR rather than free antivirus), quarterly security-awareness training with simulated phishing, off-site immutable backups with quarterly tested restores, dedicated email security beyond default provider filtering, and a documented incident-response plan with a named lead.

Backup is the practice of creating copies of data; disaster recovery (DR) is the broader practice of restoring business operations after an event, including backup restoration plus infrastructure rebuild, application failover, and process resumption.

Foundational baseline expected by most cyber-insurance underwriters and MSP security frameworks: MFA across all business applications, business-grade endpoint detection and response (EDR), dedicated email security beyond default provider filtering, immutable backups with tested restores, and quarterly security-awareness training with simulated phishing.

Common triggers: hardware end-of-life, an acquisition or major growth event, regulatory or contractual cloud requirements, modernization of legacy applications, or a clear cost or agility business case.

User count and locations, current IT pain points, compliance requirements (HIPAA, SOC 2, PCI), growth trajectory, current security posture, current spend, decision maker, timeline, and the single most important outcome of the engagement.