Ransomware loves a long weekend
LA’s school district was hit over the Labor Day weekend. Attackers pick the days nobody is watching.
Los Angeles Unified, the second-largest school district in the US, was hit by ransomware over the Labor Day weekend. That timing isn’t luck. Attackers like holidays and weekends because nobody is watching the alerts and the people who can make decisions are away.
Before the next long weekend:
- Someone is on call, knows they are, and can be reached.
- Alerts go to a phone, not only to an inbox nobody opens until Tuesday.
- That person can act: disable accounts, isolate machines, shut a VPN, without waiting for three approvals.
- Backups are checked on Friday, and at least one copy can’t be deleted from the network.
- Emergency contacts are written down: your IT partner, insurer, and the managers who must decide.
Small companies often can’t afford 24/7 monitoring. They can afford a rota, a phone alert and a one-page plan.