Office 365, Teams Creating Ransomware Worries in Hong Kong
- By CDOTrends editors
- April 05, 2021
In Hong Kong, if you are in retail, IT, telecoms, or finance, there is a more than 60% chance you are a ransomware victim.
The relentless onslaught of ransomware attacks saw 60% of Hong Kong companies experiencing a ransomware attack, said a recent Barracuda Networks report titled “The State of Office 365 backup.”
The report, which surveyed 1,828 respondents across U.S., EMEA and APAC, showed that Hong Kong’s Retail, Catering, and Leisure industry faced the most significant number of attacks at 72%. IT & Telecom came second at 65%, followed by Finance at 63%.
The sudden growth of Office 365 data due to the shift to remote or hybrid working is a huge concern for 74% of Hong Kong companies. They felt that this data would become a ransomware target.
When it came to backup and recovery, 75% of respondents still depended on Office 365 features for backing up and restoring Office 365 data, even when 76% admitted that they are not enough.
IT leaders want more granular restore functionalities for Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams currently unavailable on the software platform, with 75% wanting to recover mailboxes at another location or user account.
Another potential ransomware flashpoint is Teams. The report notes that 83% of Hong Kong respondents felt the collaboration software might pose a data-retention problem.
“With the rapid shift to remote work dramatically increasing reliance on SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams over the past year, protecting Office 365 data is a more crucial requirement than ever before — and more challenging,” said James Forbes-May, vice president of APAC at Barracuda Networks. “That’s why organizations are looking for comprehensive, easy-to-use backup solutions that are fast to get up and running and include capabilities like granular retention that aren’t included in Microsoft’s native functionality.”
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