Too Small to Be a Target? A Construction Firm's Ransomware Lesson

A story shared by cybersecurity consultant Dave Hatter of Intrust IT shows how quickly a ransomware attack can end a small business. A new CFO at a small construction company contacted Intrust about its services. The owner vetoed the idea. He believed the business was too small to interest hackers and that his one-person IT setup was all he could afford.

Three weeks later, Hatter was asked by a local accountant to help a ransomware victim. When he called, he realised it was the same construction company. According to Hatter, the business was running an old, unpatched Windows server that held its most important data. It had a backup drive, but that drive was connected to the same server, so the ransomware encrypted both.

The impact was immediate. Hatter said the company could not pay its employees and did not know who owed it money. He could not help the firm, and he never learned whether a ransom was paid. The business, which had operated for years, closed within months.

This is only the opening of the column, which also describes a second case where strong defences held up against dedicated phishing attacks.