Company of eight employees collapses due to ransomware

Paying the roughly $800,000 ransom didn't kill the company. What did it was the disruption of their business for months on end even after unlocking their files.

Wilhelm Einhaus, founder of Einhaus Group, recalls the "horror day" in 2023 clearly: "I came to the company in the morning and there was a printout on every printer: We hacked you."

Their contract, billing and communication systems were all down. Royal ransomware had encrypted everything. They had to resort to manually processing a large backlog of transactions.

The ransomware was able to steal administrator credentials, allowing it to spread undetected across the firm's network, locking up multiple servers and PCs. The firm did not have the type of cybersecurity system to detect these threats and isolate the first affected server.

In the ensuing months, they cut staff and sold off assets to try to stay afloat. It wasn't enough. After two years, the company filed for bankruptcy.

Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services are designed to identify precisely this type of behavior, the type that antivirus software does not detect.

The cost of MDR service, Huntress, from SecureMyFirm: $10 per computer per month before any discounts. Compare that to the approximately $5,000,000 loss and eventual bankruptcy sustained by the Einhaus Group.