The mental impact of ransomware attacks

By Jason Scanlon, Virtual Chief Technology Officer, Numata

Mental health in the workplace is a critical topic right now. Escalating socio-economic, health, corporate, technological, and personal pressures cause many leaders and employees to burn out before they hit the half-year mark.
As a business leader, you can’t do much about your employees’ personal stresses, but you can (and should) have mental wellness policies for when things go wrong in the workplace, like ransomware and cybersecurity attacks.

Mental health impact of ransomware attacks on employees

When a ransomware or cybersecurity attack occurs, the hysteria typically revolves around the welfare of the business and its assets, and rightfully so. You go into survival mode and revert all your resources to fixing the problem and getting business operations back to normal.

Problem is, however, that the people directly or indirectly involved in the incident often experience strain during and after the attack.

Here’s an example:

You are the branch manager of an equipment hire business. One day, four robbers enter your branch and demand that you and your employees lie on the ground. After tying everyone up, the robbers leave with millions worth of equipment.

The next day, you retrieve most of the stolen goods, enhance your security measures, and its business as usual, right?

Not exactly. While you’re working to retrieve your goods and up the ante on your security, your employees are traumatised. Gary from accounting has nightmares, Grace from HR experiences constant panic attacks, and Patricia from customer service cries before leaving the house in the morning.

The same goes for ransomware and cybersecurity attacks. Any attack, whether it’s a physical robbery, or an online attack can cause some type of trauma for employees.

Research agrees

A 2022 Northwave Security: After the crisis comes the blow – the mental impact of ransomware attacks whitepaper reveals the startling effects of cyberattacks on the mental health of those involved in the recovery process.

Although ransomware attacks have increased by 232% since 2019, we’ve wasted no time assessing the technology and attackers associated with these incidents.

As a result, we now know that these attackers operate very much like businesses with hierarchical-type structures. We’re also quite familiar with the impact of these attacks on daily operations.

While continuous learning is a big thumb-up regarding prevention planning, we keep skipping an important step. We’re so busy understanding the enemy and upgrading our weaponry that we forget about the soldiers involved in the cyber war.

A survey of CEOs, CIOs, COOs, IT managers, and CERT members who’ve experienced ransomware attacks revealed adverse effects such as sleeping problems, unhealthy eating habits, increased alcohol consumption, and smoking.

Other findings of the report:

• Most respondents felt an overwhelming sense of guilt about being unable to do enough to mitigate the risk and neglecting family and friends in the process.
  
  
• One in seven respondents required professional trauma counselling up to a year after a ransomware attack.
  
  
• One in five respondents considered or is still considering changing jobs after an attack.
  
  
• Two out of three employees believe the world is more dangerous than they thought before an attack.

How to address the mental health strain after a ransomware attack

In an ideal world, there are no ransomware attacks, to begin with – hence continuous developments in cybersecurity. But we don’t live in a cyberattack-free world (yet) and must consider and prepare for all the variables.

So, as a business leader, what can you do to address the mental health strain of a ransomware attack?

1. Start at the policy level: Ensure you have mental health support services in your health insurance policies.
   
   
2. Early detection: Identify the people, directly and indirectly, involved in ransomware attacks, create awareness around the symptoms of trauma, and check in with them regularly.
   
   
3. Give them time: Don’t expect employees to return to business as usual the following day. They need time to process what happened and calm their nerves before returning to work.
   
   
4. Provide assurance: Many employees fear losing their jobs or reliving the events. Assure them they won’t lose their jobs and create a safe working culture to cope with the incident.
   
   
5. Keep communication open: Clear and realistic communication is vital to managing expectations and ensuring employees receive maximum support from you and their colleagues.
   
   
6. Develop incident response and business continuity plans: No one expects you to be a psychic, but you can prepare for best- and worst-case scenarios. Map out best practices during and after these attacks to ensure your assets and teams can recover successfully.

The aftermath of a ransomware attack

The impact during and after a cyberattack doesn’t stay at work. Incident response teams, IT administrators, IT managers, and other persons directly or indirectly involved often have to put family and friends on the back burner until the threat is mitigated, ultimately placing additional stress and mental strain on families and friends.

In the words of Benjamin Franklin, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Take care of your teams’ mental health and well-being and reap the benefits of a resilient IT infrastructure and business.

Speak to a Numata strategist to learn more about protecting your business and teams against ransomware attacks.

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