Anger, but most of all, helplessness. The personal suffering after such an attack is sometimes great, says cybersecurity expert Joost Gijzel of DataExpert-Interstellar, who assists companies if this happens. He often finds chaos when his help is called in. “Then I try to get an overview of the attack and the consequences, and at the same time I am a kind of crisis psychologist: a shoulder to cry on and someone who gets coffee.”
According to Gijzel, it is precisely that side of the attacks – the personal one – that is still underexposed. “You have to keep in mind that such an attack happens unexpectedly and there are not always plans ready. Often this was already an item on the corporate agenda that still had to be addressed: namely, what do we do if we are hit by ransomware?”
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Hostage compares a ransomware attack to a house break-in. “After that, the fright is often good for a long time and you keep asking yourself; could I have prevented this?” But according to Gijzel, it is often no one to blame that hackers were able to break into a company, except the criminals themselves.
“Individual colleagues often don the garb, fearing that the company will be locked down because of them. But it is almost impossible to prevent: the question is not so much whether your company will ever have to deal with this, but rather when. good to have discussed it before.”
At the same time, many companies do not yet have their digital affairs in order, warned the Cyber Security Council recently. That advisory body of the cabinet sees that many companies do not think they will become victims. Even basic security measures are not adhered to, leaving a lot of low hanging fruit for criminals.
Burnouts, anger, but also the tendency to authoritarian: these are all consequences of an attack that Hostage has seen. “You should almost open the cyber victim line. Fortunately, there is more and more attention for these types of attacks, hopefully also more for the personal consequences.”
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